In recent years, Vietnam has been experiencing a booming economy, heavily driven by information technology and digitization. While the first academic degree programs in Information Systems (IS) began in the mid-1960s, the term “IS” is recent to Vietnam. The business environment has changed from closed to highly open since Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007. Foreign companies are eager to bring in money, manpower, experience and well-developed systems with the desire of obtaining a piece of the market. Instead of running their business in paper-based or replying on simple systems, local companies must develop sophisticated IS in a strategic manner as a way of staying up to date and moving forward to maintain competitive advantage. On the other hand, the foreign companies also need to localize their systems so as to fit in the Vietnamese society. Vietnamese government has many policies to support enterprises computerize and apply IS. In the public sector, e-Government has been continuously invested and implemented.
At the moment, Vietnam has little exposure to the international research and AIS community. A previous AIS chapter was established in 2011, but only lasted for 1 year. Currently, there are eleven AIS members in Vietnam.
To bridge the gap and encourage growth in the development of IS, a number of public and private universities have started IS degree programs in both undergraduate and postgraduate level including University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city, Can Tho University, Can Tho University of Technology, University of Economics and Law-VNUHCM, University of Technology-VNUHCM, University of Banking Ho Chi Minh City, RMIT University, University of Information Technology-VNUHCM, University of Finance and Marketing Ho Chi Minh City, University of Natural Sciences-VNUHCM and more.