On August 8, 2026, a delegation from the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City visited and worked with Naval Brigade 189. Beyond stories about naval personnel and their mission to protect the nation, the visit offered a perspective closely connected to corporate management: the four words “Unity, Discipline, Confidentiality, Victory” can also be understood as principles for organizational governance.

Some journeys are about seeing a place we have never been before. Others are about bringing back a new perspective on things that may have seemed familiar.

During the visit to Naval Brigade 189, four words stood out against the backdrop of the assembly hall:

“Unity, Discipline, Confidentiality, Victory.”

For a military unit, these are more than a slogan. Each word reflects a specific organizational requirement: people must coordinate with one another, processes must be precise, information must be protected, and the ultimate mission must be accomplished.

Viewed through the lens of business, these four words can also become four important questions for business leaders.

Meeting and exchange program between the delegation of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City and Naval Brigade 189.

Unity: More Than Team Spirit — It Is About Aligning an Organization Around a Common Goal

In a military environment, coordination among individuals and units is fundamental. Each person performs a different role, but everyone works toward a common objective.

The same applies to business.

Unity is not created simply through team-building activities, company trips, or slogans about corporate culture. An organization is truly united only when its goals, incentives, and evaluation mechanisms do not create unnecessary conflicts between departments.

If one department is rewarded for achieving its targets by shifting difficulties onto another department, it becomes difficult to build a genuine sense of working toward a common goal.

This raises an important question for every organization:

Within the current system, is anyone benefiting from an outcome that creates disadvantages for someone else?

If the answer is yes, the problem may not lie in employees’ attitudes or team spirit. It may lie in how the organization has designed its objectives, authority, and incentive mechanisms.

Unity, in this sense, is first and foremost a question of organizational design.

Discipline: When “Almost Right” Is No Longer Good Enough

One thing that stands out in environments where precision is critical is the way information is communicated: concise, clear, and based on what is actually known.

In particular, the ability to say “I don’t know yet” is also a form of discipline.

This matters more in business than we often realize.

An estimate, if repeated often enough, can eventually become an “official figure.” An assumption made in a meeting can become the basis for a decision. Unverified information can pass through multiple layers of reporting until no one remembers where it originally came from.

In the pharmaceutical sector, this requirement is even more evident. Information about products, origins, batch numbers, expiration dates, inventory, and transactions must be managed with a high degree of accuracy, because at the end of the data chain are decisions that can directly affect patients.

Therefore, data discipline is not about making processes more cumbersome.

It is about enabling a business to distinguish between what is fact, what is an assumption, and what has yet to be verified.

A well-designed operating system should also not depend entirely on whether employees happen to be “careful.” Processes need to be designed so that critical errors have a chance to be detected before they lead to consequences.

Good discipline is when the system helps people do things correctly, rather than simply asking people to try harder not to make mistakes.

Confidentiality: Transparency Does Not Mean Sharing Everything

“Confidentiality” may be the word that prompts the most reflection when placed alongside modern management language.

Businesses today talk extensively about transparency, data sharing, and information connectivity. Yet transparency and confidentiality are not actually opposites.

Transparency means making the right information available to the right people. Confidentiality means protecting information that is not authorized to be shared.

To achieve both, a business must first understand what types of data it holds, which data is critical, and who genuinely needs access to it.

This is particularly important for businesses that operate on data-driven platforms.

For SPHACY, data associated with pharmacies, distributors, manufacturers, and other participants across the pharmaceutical supply chain needs to be managed with appropriate access controls and security requirements.

A business may invest heavily in technology, but if it does not know which data needs to be protected, who is authorized to access it, and how those permissions are controlled, technology alone cannot solve the core problem.

It can begin with a few basic questions:

     – Which data, if exposed, could cause serious consequences?

     – Who currently has access to that data?

     – How are access rights granted and revoked?

     – Can the company review access history when necessary?

Ultimately, confidentiality is not merely an IT issue. It is part of an organization’s management capability.

Victory: Results Are the Consequence of the Foundations Built Before Them

Perhaps the most thought-provoking aspect lies in the order of the four words:

Unity – Discipline – Confidentiality – Victory.

“Victory” comes last.

In business language, we often begin with objectives: growth, market expansion, increased revenue, and improved efficiency. These goals are absolutely necessary. But to achieve them sustainably, businesses must first build the foundations that come before them.

If teams cannot coordinate effectively, it is difficult to produce shared results.

If processes lack discipline, it is difficult to maintain quality.

If data is not adequately protected, growth may come with increasingly significant risks.

In this sense, “Victory” can be seen as the outcome of a well-organized system, rather than simply a goal that has been set.

Business leaders cannot directly control every final outcome. But they can influence how the organization is built, how people collaborate, how processes operate, and how data is managed.

Gifts presented to the children of officers and personnel of the unit.

Behind Every Service Member Is a Family

Beyond the stories of organization and discipline, the visit to Naval Brigade 189 also revealed something much more ordinary and human: the family members and children of the officers and personnel.

The work of military personnel sometimes requires them to spend extended periods away from their families. During that time, their families continue with the everyday responsibilities of life: children going to school, household activities, and the many matters that need attention each day.

The stability of the home front is therefore also part of what allows service members to carry out their duties with peace of mind.

As part of the visit, the delegation presented gifts to the children and officers and personnel of the unit. Previously, Ho Chi Minh City had also organized support activities for the Brigade on the occasion of its 15th anniversary.

Such contributions cannot replace the duties performed by military personnel, nor can their value be fully expressed by a number. But they are one way for the community to show appreciation for those carrying out their responsibilities, while also recognizing and caring for the families who stand behind them.

Representative of SPHACY Joint Stock Company presenting gifts to the children of officers and personnel of Naval Brigade 189.

Four Words, Four Questions for Every Business

From a visit to a military unit, the four words displayed in the assembly hall can be brought back to the desks of business leaders.

Unity: Are the company’s goals and reward mechanisms causing one department to benefit at the expense of another?

Discipline: When an employee reports incorrect data, how does the system respond? And when an employee is honest enough to say, “I don’t know yet,” how does the organization react?

Confidentiality: If the company’s most critical data were exposed, would the organization know how and where that data had left its systems?

Victory: Are the goals the company is pursuing truly built on the foundations of a well-coordinated team, disciplined operations, and robust data governance?

These four words are not a management formula that can simply be applied unchanged to every business.

But they offer a valuable way of thinking:

Before talking about results, look at the foundations that create those results.

And perhaps that is the most meaningful thing to bring home from a visit like this: not only what we have seen, but also the new questions it encourages us to ask about our own organizations.