Hien, who joined Dollarama in 2012, first ventured into entrepreneurship when he partnered in a consulting firm. In his role as a partner and project director, one of Hien’s most prominent clients happened to be Dollarama itself. In 2011, the consulting firm was acquired by KPMG but Hien maintained his relationship with Dollarama as a client and, in 2012, officially joined with an initial focus on implementing a Project Management Office and spearheading the company's international expansion efforts.
As time progressed, Hien transitioned into a more IT-oriented role, and today, manages the IT department and the project management office, overseeing all major projects surrounding the organisation, from store operation implementation to supply chain, as well as all projects related to IT. Spending approximately 75% of his time in Montreal and 25% in Panama, Hien also oversees the Latin American subsidiaries of Dollar City.
When thinking about some of the challenges associated with a growing company, Hien recalls: “We are a growing company in Latin America and Canada, and with all the cybersecurity concerns, you need to be more and more structured, but at the same time you want to stay agile and keep moving forward.”
Technology plays a vital role in the development of Dollarama, with the company trying to improve customer convenience and facilitate the job of the store management team and store associates. “For us, technology is really a tool to improve business practices and business needs,” explains Hien. “Over the years we've deployed technological innovations to facilitate and automate manual processes. And now if you look at AI, this is something we are really looking at to automate the back office processes.”
Inevitably, technology will play a crucial role in Dollarama’s future, with the company focused on IoT, cloud migration, and cybersecurity. When it comes to AI, Hien believes that people are only at the beginning of understanding the true potential of AI and going forward it will be deployed and implemented into more business practices.
“From a store operation standpoint, we'll keep our mobile roadmap helping stores, improving their operational processes. From a back office standpoint, we'll keep improving our processes by doing more automation,” says Hien.
“On the hiring market, I think that the pandemic environment has changed the way candidates approach work and how they see remote work versus working on-site. So I think technology can definitely help to understand and match the needs of a company and candidate, and that's basically what we're trying to do.”
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