An online public auction solution developed by a team of young engineers from Viettel Solutions won the Sao Khue award in the digital government category. Prior to this, public auctions were a unique field that had never been held online.
Pioneering the development of an online public auction platform
The demand for auctioning public assets is high in all provinces and cities in Vietnam. According to data on the website of the Ministry of Justice, there were over 40,000 public auction announcements issued in 2020, and over 60,000 in 2021.
However, the current system of in-person public auctions has many shortcomings in both the organization and auctioning of assets. With the rapid development of information technology (IT), people are increasingly demanding online auctions. With no geographical or time restrictions, people can now register to participate in multiple auctions at the same time from their computers or smart devices connected to the internet. This is expected to create a transparent and open market for buying and selling assets, while still ensuring the security of customer information. Against this backdrop, from mid-2021, Viettel Solutions, a member of Viettel Group, began to accelerate the development and improvement of the online public auction platform.
In order to implement the project, a team of 10 young engineers, aged 25-30, at Viettel Solutions worked quickly. "We spent most of our time brainstorming. The implementation and testing of the software only took about 4 months," said Mr. Le Anh Hieu, the project's chief engineer.
According to the prediction, the online public auction platform developed by Viettel Solutions is expected to bring many benefits to local authorities, users (online auction participants), and auction organizers (provincial/city asset auction service centers).
The chief engineer of the project analyzes that this is a web-based platform service for PC systems and a mobile application. This system simulate the actual auction with completely familiar phases and procedures.
The platform will allow local authorities to easily manage and track the progress, quality, and success rate of auctions. Furthermor, the leader can conduct real-time monitoring and supervision of online activities, which can help improve the digital transformation score of the province.
For users, the system has simple design to allow them to easily participate in auctions from anywhere in the world. Vietnamese citizens can save time on registration, bidding, and payment. In addition, their deposits refunded quickly if they do not win the auction.
The online public auction software developed by Viettel Solutions also provides specific benefits for auction organizers. The system automates many tasks that are currently performed manually, such as registration, bidding, and payment. This can help reduce the workload of auction organizers and free up their time for other tasks.
The solution to reduce the accountant's workload in authorising payment requests is the system's integration of Viettel Money's convenient online payment service, which allows users to pay via a variety of methods, including bank cards /app credit /QR code /e-wallet, etc.
In addition, with the bank transfer payment method, the system will automatically approve based on the transaction code. This solution helps to optimize the payment approval process, eliminating congestion even if there are a large number of registered bidders.
In addition, the system also has a unique feature of processing transactions in real time, allowing participants in the auction to update the status of the session immediately. In addition, the software is well-optimized, able to handle large numbers of users with low infrastructure costs.
It is known that before Viettel Solutions developed this product, there were about 4-5 similar online auction platforms in Vietnam. However, all of them are products for auctioning private assets. Viettel Solutions is the first company to develop the Public Auction software, aimed at serving the government's digital transformation goals.
Non-technical factors play an important role in success
Although through an online format, the software system of Viettel Solutions has all the features to support auction experts to verify all information about participants.
Specifically, users who want to create an account on the system must provide images, personal information, ID card number; if it is an organization, it must have a business registration certificate, etc. After that, the authorized officer will verify all this information.
The verification round will continue to repeat before each auction session. That is, to participate in any auction session, the authorized officer will conduct a review of the registered bidders according to Article 38 Clause 4 of the 2016 Asset Auction Law, to check the validity.
According to Mr. Hieu, the big advantage of the Viettel engineers in implementing this solution is that the pilot project with Thái Nguyên province was facilitated by Ms. Nguyễn Thanh Hải, the Secretary of the Thái Nguyên Province Party Committee, as well as the provincial leaders set high determination to implement the project.
“According to the plan of the Thai Nguyen Provincial People's Committee on digital transformation, the provincial leaders want to digitize the online public auction work, because each year the locality has up to over 300 auction sessions, each session may include many different assets.”
In fact, the implementation process faced many challenges due to the lack of specific legal documents guiding online public auctions. Therefore, Viettel engineers have worked closely with the Province, especially the Thái Nguyên Department of Justice, to ensure that the software complies with the legal framework and is constantly adjusted to suit the actual situation in the Province.
After the product was completed and won the Sao Khuê 2022 award in the Digital Government field, the project's chief engineer, Mr. Le Anh Hieu, shared:
“For solutions such as online public auctions to be put into practice, leaders at the highest level in localities must be people with new thinking, determined to make major changes in digital transformation, then all difficulties can be solved. Technical or technological issues may not be a big problem in implementing digital solutions in the public sector, but it is the determination of the head of the organization.”
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Tra - Deputy General Director of Thai Nguyen Provincial Asset Auction Center, said that the online public auction product has been basically completed and is in the trial phase. Thai Nguyen Province plans to put it into use this year
