Doan Van Hieu Em, CEO of An Khang, and his vow to take the company to new heights

DNHN - Chairman Nguyen Duc Tai said that for the An Khang chain, after a long time of not paying attention, this year, with the help of Mr Doan Van Hieu Em, will bring An Khang to new heights. Mr Doan Van Hieu Em is now CEO of two chains: The Gioi Di Dong and Dien May Xanh.

There was a pharmacy chain called Phuc An Khang before it changed its name to An Khang. In 2018, MWG bought more than 634,000 shares in the pharmacy chain. This is how much money had been transferred at the time.

 In the past, MWG also planned to buy back 100% of the shares in this drug store chain, instead of taking 2-3 years to learn how to start and run a pharmaceutical business model.

"After you get them, change the stores and the way you run your business." As soon as this year is over, "An Khang will be like a hurricane this year, and by the end of it, we can be in the top three of the pharmaceutical industry in both revenue and chain stores." CEO of An Khang expressed.

At this point, An Khang isn't worried about making money. Instead, he wants to get more market share and open more stores. Mr Doan Van Hieu Em says that when these goals are met, the company will start making money.

At the end of 2021, each An Khang store will make about 340–350 million VND on average. The first quarter of 2022: March sales per store almost doubled to about 650 million VND per store.

A lot of strategic changes were made to make this kind of money. A Khang changed the business model and redesigned store layouts and product portfolios. He also built a new website. There is no doubt that the revenue of this chain is going to keep rising in the future.

As for An Khang, right now, MWG is repositioning nearly 200 old An Khang stores with a new identity and logo. This work is expected to be done in May. A Khang wants to make more money until the end of June. From 178 pharmacies to nearly 400 with a completely new look, the company will keep adding stores until the last few months of 2022.

It's important to note that the growth rate of the electronics market is slowing down, but the market share of MWG's mobile phones and electronics is already high. This is a big "challenge" for the company.

At the general meeting of shareholders, Doan Van Hieu Em also said that he thinks the market for phones and electronics will grow only 8% to 10% in 2022. If MWG wants to keep growing its market share, it can only take market share from other people.

This year, MWG plans to open electronics centres with an area of 3,000 to 5,000 square meters and bring the Dien May Xanh model to other countries to make sure that the company grows quickly

In addition, the company is also looking to expand into new product lines to gain more market share, such as in the pharmaceutical industry.

Estimates from BMI, a market research company, say that the pharmaceutical market in Vietnam will grow by 10% in 2021 to reach more than $5 billion. By 2025, this market value is expected to keep growing and reach $7.8 billion, which is how much it will be worth.

With more money, people aren't just looking for drugs anymore. They're also looking for things like functional foods and electronic health monitoring devices.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's drugstore market is still very dispersed, with more than 60,000 points of sale, most of them run by small businesses. This means that, in the coming years, more modern retail chains that have advantages like scale, stable service, and a wide variety of products are expected to keep taking over more and more of the market.

During the General Meeting of Shareholders, Mr Hieu Em also said that he thinks that the company is going to do well. Pharmaceuticals make about $7-8 billion a year, and there are about 60,000 traditional pharmacies in the United States now.

When you look at all of these 60,000 pharmacies, you'll see that modern pharmacies like An Khang, Pharmacy, and Long Chau make up only 3–5 per cent of them. These are numbers that show that there is a lot of room for growth in the pharmaceutical industry.

People want to be in the top 3, but it's very close to where they are now. A Khang must be first in this pharmaceutical industry in the next few years, says Mr Hieu Em, the person who leads the An Khang chain.

He was born in 1982. Doan Van Hieu Em graduated from the University of Finance and Marketing in Ho Chi Minh City, where he learned about marketing. People in Ho Chi Minh City are going to school for finance and accounting, so since joining MWG in March 2007, Hieu Em has worked in many different places.

A company called Mobile World Joint Stock Company hired Hieu Em in September 2018 to be CEO. His new job is on the Board of Directors for MWG. He's been on the board since April 2019.

As a person who has been trained in the financial sector, Mr Hieu Em has a good understanding of major business lines as well as the ability to work well with people in the supermarket sector, which helps him be trusted by the Board.

Under the leadership of CEO Doan Van Hieu Em, Mobile World has broken through old limits and frameworks. A young CEO was able to double the number of stores, from more than 1,000 to over 2,300, in just two years.

Other retailers were struggling to stay alive or shrink. In addition, the company worked to improve the quality of existing stores, especially by changing the layout and shelves to look more like a warehouse. This meant that the number of goods on display could be doubled or tripled, giving customers more options.

In the middle and end of 2020, all retail businesses were having trouble because of the COVID-19 virus. But Mobile World, Dien May Xanh, and Bach Hoa Xanh still managed to hit milestones in both net revenue and profit after tax.

During the epidemic season, CEO 8x was on time and understood what people were thinking. All three brands' internet activities have generated more than VND 7,000 billion, or nearly 9% of total sales.

Hai Anh