And just like that, it was the last day of the trip. We started off meeting with Henry Nguyen, the licensee of McDonald’s, but after that it was pretty much a free day to walk around and explore Saigon a little bit on our feed. The conversation with Henry was really interesting to the point where I’ll highlight the difference between Vietnamese consumers and US consumers below as I think others will find them interesting as well:

• Biggest issue for McDonald’s in Vietnam is food safety and handling, not obesity
• Local suppliers use being the McDonald’s supplier as a badge of honor, proving their food safety commitment, and sell this to gain more customers
• The Vietnamese bill is on average for 2.2 customers which Henry attributed to people coming together to eat (he didn’t say what the average for US was but I’m assuming it’s much closer to one person per bill)
• Going through drive-throughs is not a thing in Vietnam so his McDonald’s need significantly more inside seating to house all of the customers that come in (he said 70% of US customers go through drive-through)
• Most people decide at least a day in advance to come to McDonald’s in Vietnam whereas in the US it’s a last minute decision when you realize you’re hungry in your car and can’t stop anywhere else

Moving beyond just McDonald’s, by far the biggest thing I learned on the trip is that in communist or third-world countries, your ties to the government are what will likely make or break you. For example, later in his presentation we found out Henry was married to an ex-prime minister’s daughter. He was an amazing guy, but you could hear the class give out an audible sigh when he said this as it kind of took away from his accomplishments when this relationship to the government became apparent. Also, not our small group, but a different small group in the class went to a Venture Capital fund who basically said “We invest in companies the government take interest in”. Dan Keeler, our Wall Street Journal professor, made the comment afterwards that his “mental corruption flag” as he called it was pointing straight up during that conversation. The US might not be perfect, but after a trip like this, it’s incredibly clear why places like Silicon Valley and New York have boomed with immigrants trying to fulfill their pursuit for happiness. In other countries, without the right connections, there just isn’t even a chance.

After meeting with Henry the class split up into small groups based on who wanted to do what, and for the most part we just walked around the city. Below are the rest of the pictures of Saigon that I took:

And below that are just random pictures from Vietnam that I wanted to put on this website but didn’t really fit in to any specific section. I just think they look nice.

After spending 5 days in Cambodia and 4 days in Vietnam the trip was over. It was an amazing experience. Learning about the history of these countries, having fun with friends, and eating lots of pho was a great way to end my Kellogg career. After we got back home, the class met one more time to give our presentations from our small-group topics. In the blink of an eye, two years and fifteen classes later, I had completed my MBA and visited Asia for the first time in my life. What an incredible way to end the program.