As Corporate Lifespans Shrink, Vingroup Keeps Reinventing Itself

“At thirty, one stands firm,” wrote Confucius in the Analects, describing an important stage in a person’s life. For businesses, the idea may be more relevant than ever, although standing firm today can mean something very different: knowing when to change before the market forces the issue, especially as the lifespan of large companies has been falling. In 1958, companies in the S&P 500 was estimated to have an average lifespan of 61 years. By the 2010s, that had fallen to about 18 years. The process of creative destruction is accelerating as technology creates new competitors and new business models.

Why do large companies disappear when they once seemed “too big to fail”? Size can bring capital, scale and resilience, but too much stability can also create inertia. A business that spends too much time protecting what it has built may find that the market has already moved on and that it has failed to move fast enough.

That kind of inertia poses an even greater challenge for conglomerates, which are built to last across generations, yet the industries around them can change within a decade. The answer, increasingly, is reinvention: entering new fields while using the experience, capital and capabilities accumulated in the old ones.

Vingroup, fresh from its 33rd anniversary, offers an interesting example from Vietnam. Its story has evolved from food production and tourism to real estate, hospitality and healthcare, and then now to electric vehicles, green energy and infrastructure.

There are signs that the strategy is gaining recognition. In June, Fortune ranked Vingroup No. 26 among Southeast Asia’s 500 largest companies, up from No. 37 in 2025 and No. 45 in 2024. Just this week, TIME placed Vingroup at No. 340 in its World’s Best Companies 2026 ranking, up 477 places from No. 817 a year earlier. It was the only Vietnamese company to make the list for a second consecutive year. Today, companies across Vingroup’s ecosystem are present in 12 countries and employ around 400,000 people worldwide.

Among them, VinFast is perhaps the clearest example of rapid diversification combined with a global push. Founded in 2017, the electric vehicle maker has become Vietnam’s leading automotive brand by sales and is targeting 300,000 electric cars and 1 million electric motorcycles globally in 2026. From Vietnam, it has expanded into North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

But more than just shipping vehicles, VinFast is also exporting something less visible but equally important: the service capabilities it has developed in Vietnam. By the end of 2025, it had nearly 400 service workshops in Vietnam, while its global network is targeted to exceed 1,100 in 2026, supported by standardized technician training, operating procedures, quality controls and parts delivery targeting 24 hours in key markets.

That makes aftersales more than a support function for international expansion. It is becoming a capability that VinFast can take from Vietnam and adapt to markets abroad, turning the experience built around its domestic network into part of its global offering. The Middle East is one of the markets where that approach is now being put to the test.

At thirty, a person may be expected to stand firm. For a company, longevity may require something else: the ability to keep moving.