The 2013 report by Tholons, a consultancy firm, about the 100 cities in the world most attractive in terms of software outsourcing named the Vietnamese Hanoi and HCM Cities in the top 25.

The 16th grade has been given to HCM City, while the 23rd to Hanoi.

Meanwhile, in the report of Gartner, also a consultancy firm, Vietnam is always among the top 30 leading countries in the world and top 10 leading countries in Asia Pacific in outsourcing and services.

In September 2013, the US Software Magazine added Vietnamese FPT Software into the list of the world’s 500 biggest software service providers.

With the turnover of $81.5 million and the 30.4 percent growth rate in 2012, FPT Software is the first Vietnamese firm found in the list. Prior to that, in 2012, FPT Software won the international award “top 100 global service providers” given by Global Services, an Indian media firm and NeoGroup, an US consultancy firm.

Meanwhile, another Vietnamese firm, TMA Solutions, has been added by the US Aberdeen Group, Inc, specializing in analyzing the world’s information technology market, into the list of 15 best software outsourcing service providers. The list was released after a survey on 52 software firms.

As “Vietnam” has become a strong brand, Vietnamese firms have got more opportunities to obtain more valuable contracts from foreign partners.

FPT Software has signed a contract with Suntory PepsiCo Beverage (Suntory PepsiCo), under which it deploys the Distribution Management System (DMS) - Lite based on mobility technology for Suntory PepsiCo’s in 2013-2015.

The firm has also started a new Cloud project with a Texas based Independent Software Vendor (ISV) who provides software products to manage and automate work process for insurance companies.

“Citus SaaS Blocks” is a multi-tenant framework built by FPT, which can help ISVs enable their application into Software as a Service (SaaS) model and save up to 60 percent effort in Cloud development.

Japanese firms now see Vietnam as an attractive market for them to outsource. A big advantage of Vietnamese firms is the low labor cost, which is just equal to 60 percent of Chinese and Indian. Meanwhile, Vietnamese firms have good capability enough and can get adapted to the works.

To date, 70-80 Japanese information technology firms have invested in Vietnam with an aim to take full advantage of the qualified and low cost labor force.

Japan is the most important market for Vietnam with the value of over $130 billion. It is the third largest market in the world after the US and the EU.

The latest report by IPA, the agency for information technology promotion, Vietnam surpassed India in 2012 to become the Japanese second biggest partner. Vietnam received 23 percent of Japanese overseas orders, higher than the 13.7 percent for India.

To date, China remains the biggest partner for Japanese firms. However, Vietnam may jump to the Number 1 position in the near future.

About 60 Japanese leading firms and 30 Japanese invested firms in Vietnam would attend the Japan ICT Week 2013 to be held on October 23-16 in Hanoi and Da Nang.