Before the visit, Prof Minh’s lecture set the tone for the entire day. He shared insights on how companies need to pivot during crises including points of multiple manufacturing countries. Manufacturing in one country is a strategic vulnerability, and I noticed Dien Quang thought about this too as they are expanding to South America and other South East Asian countries. This creates protection and distribution easier for the buyers. 

When we got to the factory everything seemed normal and as I would expect – I really enjoyed seeing everything and was thinking to myself when else would I be able to witness a tech factory like this. When we got to the part of the tour where factory workers were more prevalent I noticed a divide in the work. It was already individual work but also a gender divide: women handling sorting and assembly, men in the engineering roles. What hit me more, though, was just the act of watching people work up close like that, it felt almost invading their privacy and was overall not what I expected. This isn’t to criticize Dien Quang; just something that stood out to me and was interesting to see different workforces in different industries in an obvious way. 

The products themselves were a genuine highlight. I hadn’t thought about lighting as a food preservation tool before the smart bar demo, and seeing the science behind it completely reframed the category for me. The showroom made it easy to see how the same company can serve a home, a fashion boutique, and an airport terminal all at once — the range was impressive. The little lamp shaped like a person was my personal favorite and it showed how the company worked with design as well as functionality. 

What surprised me most, though, was the climate testing. I assumed product testing would be more clinical and detached, but they were literally recreating real environmental conditions and they were  mimicking the heat, humidity, and atmosphere the product would actually live in. It sounds obvious in retrospect, but seeing it in person made it click in a way a textbook description never would.