Works like that

One day I noticed that a technical staff was taking unusual extra days and emails to resolve a problem. I sent him the following little reminder to insinuate my dissatisfaction. 

Customer:  How to solve problem A?

FingerTec: Problem A has A(1) and A(2), which one do you mean? 

(One day has gone.)

Customer: Sorry, it is supposed to be A(2). 

FingerTec: Okay. But A(2) has three options, A(2a), A(2b) and A(2c), which one do you refer to?

(Another day has passed.)

Customer (impatient): My problem is A(2b). Please hurry up, it's urgent!

FingerTec: Okay, it’s simple. You just need to turn the reader off and to restart it all over again. Have a nice day! :-)

Customer: #S*&#@$^@!*%....

Just like FingerTec slogan, one finger solves it all, the challenge for our technical supports should be one email solve it all! A good support should have an analytical mind to see a problem inside out, and to provide full solutions in a single email.   

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Undisputed Trails

"You can’t exist in this world without leaving a piece of yourself behind. There are concrete paths, like credit card receipts and appointment calendars and promises you’ve made to others. There are microscopic clues, like fingerprints, that stay invisible unless you know how to look for them. But even in the absence of any of this, there’s scent. We live in a cloud that moves with us as we check e-mail and jog and carpool. The whole time, we shed skin cells – forty thousand per minute – that rise on currents up our legs and under our chins.”

The above quote is the very first paragraph to start Jodi Picoult’s novel entitled Vanishing Acts. There is a Chinese proverb which carries the same meaning, “凡走过必定留痕”(Wherever you go, you would leave some trails).

Disputed trails

But, trails can be counterfeited which make them disputable sometimes, when authentication is based on a medium like a card or a key.

Undisputed trails

Undisputed trails. The Biometrics products try to lament. It’s good to improve security, but some say, it’s terrifying too, because when authentication needs a body part, an eyeball of a scientist might be jabbed out by a villain who wants to gain access into a control room; a familiar scene in an action or a sci-fi movie.

But for time and attendance purpose, it’s certainly exaggerated. Who would want to chop off a finger to prove he or she was not late for work?  For the deployment of biometrics in an access control system in office environment, the frightful scenario also is very unlikely to happen.  Despite of that, most of the fingerprint vendors have to deal with these preposterous questions thrown at them every now and then. Yes, these questions were from those skeptical people who are too obsessed with Hollywood movies. 

Some people are against the idea of Biometrics authentication implementation in commercial level, arguing that it violates privacy. The misconception is due to fear that their fingerprint could be reproduced to construct the undisputed trail for other usage, which might get them into big trouble. 

The pamphlet of FingerTes addresses the use of minutiae points 

But if minutiae points are taken instead of the fingerprint image, there is no way to reproduce a fingerprint for other purposes. In fact, when it comes to access control system, biometrics still is the best solution to prevent any intrusion of your privacy.

I quoted some literacy phrases to combine sense and sensibility to soften this topic, but my writing style landed me with more sense than sensibility. :-(  My writings reveal my character; it’s an undisputed trail from biometrics, too!

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Hi-Tech Human Touch

FingerTec has two slogans. “One Finger Solves It All” and “Hi-Tech Human Touch”. The former is straightforward and the latter reflects our corporate image and it has an underlying meaning underneath the obvious. The two slogans are being used in most of our marketing materials or asserted on FingerTec logo to summarize our business strategies and philosophy as a whole.

A New Paradigm: One Finger Solves it All

In fact, the very first and now defunct slogan of FingerTec was “Security At Your FingerTips”. My rationale to detach it from FingerTec in 2005 was because I realized security was not the only industry the fingerprint technology can serve, besides it conveyed a symbolic message that we narrow the business further down to a tiny spot just as fingertips.

One Finger Solves It All is an opposite of Security At Your Fingertips, which reversed the narrow-in concept to a widen-up. And, it also meant although our business originates from one small little finger (refers to fingerprint technology), it can be broadened to all industries, and encourages explorations to some unknown areas. In other words, with an open mind, we can expect a whole new world created from our little world.

Followed by the paradigm shift, a concept of standardized product with an open architecture, a SDK (System Development Kit) that allows third party system’s integration, slowly contributed to construct a new business model, and the night starting to dawn. 

The Next Level: Hi-Tech Human Touch

One Finger Solves It All utters our ambitiousness, but what’s a business for without blood and soul? When the curtain moved-up in 2007, Hi-Tech Human Touch emerged on-stage to play a bigger role.

In fact, I’m not satisfied with the term “customer satisfaction”. It becomes a most widely spread business dogma that offers very little creativity, and eventually produces no less vulgar services and mediocre products.

Customers PAID for satisfaction. This is basic. If you couldn’t justify their minimum expectation, you would eventually bid goodbye to your business. For example, we watch various movies, read many books, listen to a lot of songs, pay for all types of services, use myriad of products; I assumed some of them was below our expectations, quite some was satisfactory, but only a rare few touched our inner hearts and stayed to become our sweet memories. Why movie “Titanic” became a classic while a lot of other movies did not? 

Where is the sensation? Where is the touch and feel? Customer satisfaction is insufficient in today’s business. You (the brand, the business) would be forgotten soon enough once they stopped using your service or product.

From I'm Satisfied to I'm Touched 

Human touch is a higher expectation. You have to be more than satisfaction.  A questionnaire that receives a check for the box, “Yes, I’m satisfied” from customers can’t be considered genuine because it’s a leading question and normally it’s a polite response from a customer to your effort of finding out your service level. Rarely would you come across customers who would feedback, “I’m touched”, because by saying that, it’s devotion from the bottom of their hearts.

Products from factory may reach satisfactory level; but it hardly reaches the level of “I’m touched”，because human elements normally are deduced from the process of factory’s operation.

To achieve Hi-Tech Human Touch, we have to cover the tiniest details of considerations based on customers’ experience.  So far we have achieved our expectation to some extends, but it’s still a long way to go.

I believe excellent shouldn’t be self-claimed; customers have the final say. 

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

An Old Outline, A New Chapter - A Year Without End (Forecast in 2009)

We shall complete the year 2008 with a profound sales growth at 75% for FingerTec products.

But, how about the coming year when recession deepened and the globe would be enveloped with a long sigh? Would it be a rough journey for all? Especially when the   business community would share the common gloomy economic outlook?

In fact, I resent the excuse of blaming the economic landscape if our business did not perform or under-perform. 

I recalled when the economy was in a very good shape; we performed terribly due to immature products, pre-matured markets and clogged sales strategies. The absence of the success elements, one may conclude.

As a start-up company in biometrics industry, some failures were inevitable. However, if the failures were endless, we had to wave the business “good-bye”. To me, it’s really not entirely the fault of the external economic environment. The good news is FingerTec passed this test with flying color.

Due to volatility of the IT industry, I believe core-competency within a company gives larger impact than the external economy landscape. By culminating core-competency, it means even when you get hit; you won’t fall.

How shall we open a new chapter based on the old storyline? Here is the storyboard, and I believe despite the downturn, we shall make our way to be nominated for the Best Motion Picture in 2009, and taste yet another successful year by your contribution, and share the fruit (of success) collectively.

1.      Market Expectation in 2009

We aimed at a growth rate of 50% in 2009.

Our confirmed Global Exhibition Schedule in 2009 so far:

Dubai, UAE:  InterSec 2009, 18-20 January

Moscow, Russia: MIPS 2009, 13-16 April

Taipei, Taiwan: Secutech 2009, 22-24 April

Mexico City, Mexico: Expo Seguridad Mexico 2009, 21-23 April

London, UK: IFSEC 2009, 11-14 May

Sao Paulo, Brazil: Exposec 2009, 12-14 May

Florida, USA: America’s Fire & Security Expo 2009, 28-30 July

Mumbai, India: China Sourcing Fair Bombay 2009, 21-23 November

HK: China Sourcing Fair HK 2009, 12-15 October

Beijing, China: Security China 2009, Dec 2009

2.      FingerTec New Products in Line

Hardware: Keylock 8800, H2i, TA300, TA100T , i-Kadex and etc.

     H2i - artist impression

TA300 - artist impression

TA200T (Touch Keypad)

Keylock 8800 - artist impression

i-Kadex -artist impression

Software: TCMS V2 web version. Delayed, but definitely will be available in 2009.

DigiPay: A Payroll software that can be integrated with TCMS V2, or go separately as a standalone product. This product would be released in early 2009 with Malaysia version, and it will be extended for use in other countries later on.

Existing products: We will keep on improving in features and quality.

3.       External: Sales & Support System Enhancement

Finally, a simple formula equally important to Einstein’s e=mc2 :-)is derived.

1 program x 2 objectives x 4 modules x 8 websites = Success

Fully understand the formula, and know how to apply it, you will get high score in your marketing exam, too.

One Program: FingerTec Global Reseller Program to bring everything under one roof;

Two Objectives:  To make the selling of FingerTec faster, and to make the technical support of FingerTec easier.

Four Modules

Marketing Module

Product Module

Training Module

Support Module

 

Eight Websites

The seven websites ranging from sales, marketing material, warranty, user, technical tips to training are on standby to serve all the time. And the new member, product website, to make it eight, would join soon to meet the customers. 

Of course, a good system has to improve and to enhance at all time, including in 2009. And the localization would be the main task lies ahead for the eight websites in conjunction with our official website: www.fingertec.com. 

4.   Internal: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System Enhancement

The CRM system was implemented since September in 2008. We will continue to improve the system to cover marketing and technical support including repair and warranty claim workflow in 2009.  This year, we will fine- tune our system to allow resellers to check on their purchase history, readers’ information, and warranty expiry date when they log in using their own account.

I believe that to better equip ourselves is to serve our customer better. I will deliver this promise.

5.     Branding Strategy Enhancement

Pursuing the practical branding strategy, branding that makes everything easy!   Besides products, we will continue to make exhibition made easy, product display made easy, and etc. We’re about to release a 40-second commercial video, “FingerTec, The Committed Brand” with a jingle to impress everybody, stay tuned!

The R&D, the brand name and the product of FingerTec is actually started since 2000. But, its image, its larger value was only started to emerge in 2005. The same year, when we had given the product, the brand name, a LIFE.  

Since then, the years have been without an end. 

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

There’s No Regret

"....though I never thought that we could lose, there's no regret, if I had to do the same again, I would, my friend, Fernando", and there goes a part of Abba’s famous song, Fernando, which presents a vision of nostalgia of two veterans reminiscing in old age about a war of liberation that they participated in during their younger days.

The old bittersweet memories revisited me over a feature-film “Mama Mia”, adaptation of the beloved musical Swedish super-band Abba screening in theatres recently.

Some friends asked whether I would start the Biometrics business once again if I have the chance to go back to the past. They all had seen me suffered and witnessed the struggle for the business to turnaround, thus, the question is, was it all worth it?

Business is very much similar to a war, but at the same time very different from a war. The battleground in business and war are both merciless and cutthroat. However, in a war, winning suffers lost of lives and losing always claims more. War is about life and death and one may end up in a sudden full stop. In contrast for a business, you may accept defeat and your lost of investment; but you may still have the chance to return to conquest your losing ground bit by bit so long as your fighting spirit is still burning.

Life was hard in my early days back in 2000, during the development of our biometrics products. The endless challenges, one after another, both technology and market struggles, failure after failure. A series of tasks, to reduce FAR (false acceptance rate) and FRR (fault rejection rate), to improve reading speed and 1: N verification, to achieve user-friendliness, cracking many scientists’ heads over the years.

Investment drained in vain and staff started to leave when the sunlight was not in sight. Our business only started to dawn in 2005, not before a cruel bloodshed and corpses of our defeated models piled in our labs.

Let us bear the pain, do not extend it to our customers! This is my conclusion after 5 years of suffering.

And two objectives were derived: To help our resellers to sell FingerTec products easier and to reduce resellers’ support costs and time. To achieve these 2 objectives, 4 modules that include Marketing, Training, Products and Technical were introduced in our Global Reseller Program. To deliver the 4 modules, 7 supporting websites were established to cover requisition of marketing materials in hardcopies, useful sales information in softcopies, training materials in softcopies, user technical guides, technical tips, accessories, and warranty claim, all are ready to serve its designated purposes.

And the presence of our products in 90+ countries worldwide finally rewarded us a small piece of success story.

Of course, life must goes on, so does a business. And the newborn model, FingerTec TA100 DIY, making its debut this month to further deliver simplicity, and with the missionary objective to put the resellers and the SME/SMI customers at ease. Off-the-shelves-kind of product, one might say.

So, there’s no regret. And, there’s no envy too of me seeing someone signing a multimillion contract for a single project. I choose to have multimillion pleasant customers using FingerTec products to claim a single victory. And, I was contended and would continue to deliver a simple message to my customers: With FingerTec, everything is easy!

So, my reply, “If I had to do the same again, I would, my friends.” And it’s definite.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Machines That Promote Honesty

Bleak is the word precisely described the present world’s economy.  The crisis started from the sub-prime mortgage problem, snowballing and eventually resulted in the avalanche of the equity market, the collapse of the banking system, and a series of disconcerted governments’ bailout. The impact seemed enormous, almost affecting all industries when the credit line blowing cold. Another Great Depression is around the corner, some economists commented.

Internet Bubble: Back to Basic

When the Internet bubble bursts in 2000, some calls, “Back to Basic” instead of “Business-to-Business”, one of the buzzwords during the Internet boom. Back to basic, seemed to be the solution when something turned sour. The basic list includes basic business logic, basic profitability capabilities, and basic corporate management system and etc.

Could we use the same medication, “Back to Basic” this time? I think it is a YES. Greed is the driving force pushing capitalism into another extreme, and too much of lies behind the greed painted the false image of prosperous.

Consequences of Greed

When there is more truth, it is fewer lies. And when one gets closer to the truth, meaning one would be far away from the lie, and the greed desire would be less possible.  Would anyone still bite an apple if he knew worms are wriggling inside? The truth is, in the financial market, vultures hovering the sky looking for the next prey. If investors obtained the true information, he would be more cautious.  

There is a famous quote from Abraham Lincoln that goes like this: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Instead of awareness coming too late after the house being burned down, shouldn’t we have a better system or corporate governance to ensure truth must be told beforehand? If yes, how?

I am not an economist, so I don’t prolong the topic. I just relate this basic principle to what FingerTec products try to achieve: no lie and be honest.

Honesty is a Virtue

When conventional punch clock system or card access system were introduced to the market, the problem of buddy-punching or proximity card being passed around the office or to outsiders had never been solved. Why? It was simply because the devices offer convenience to employees to commit lie. When this happened, truth is never shown in any companies’ financial report especially factories where staff’s working hours matter.

FingerTec video: Ghost Story

Honesty is a virtue. Some might be cynical when I’m telling that FingerTec promotes honesty when it prevents buddy punching by deploying biometric technology. Of course, the best honesty should come from one’s inner self, and should not be imposed by external force. Just like no bosses like to be fooled by employees, they shouldn’t become vulture themselves. 

I strongly believe that honesty is the basic principle before any solution for all kinds of crisis.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Turkey: Tug-of-War with Eternity

                                   A bridge linking the European side and the Asian side

Istanbul, aged two thousand years old but still a vibrant cosmopolitan city, and one of my must-visit top destinations, here I come. 

The Istanbullus are very much in their own center of gravity, receiving foreign visitors in (luke) warm manner; and some turns cold shoulder. Perhaps, 6.5 million tourists (in 2007) flooded Istanbul city make them less enthusiasm for foreigners.  

There is a bridge over the Bosphorus Strait linking the European side and Asian side, the interface and the mixture of civilization has inevitably engulfed Istanbul in an endless tug-of-war between the East and the West, between Islamic and Christianity, between ancient and contemporary, and between certainty and uncertainty of their own identity. It seemed like the Turkey's application to enter the European Union (previously the European Communities) has also becoming a long march of tug-of-war since 1987.

The rise and fall of the Roman Byzantine Empire and later by the multicultural Muslim Ottoman Empire nourished the culture in Istanbul, produced Mr. Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 2006. His writing has a lot of reminiscence of the glorious past and depicting his brought-up city like a thin air of melancholy.     

And Istanbul is situated at the hilly location where the modern asphalt roads and the old cobblestone pavements are free flowing up and down according to the land structure. Some alleys snaking and sloping into the residential apartments are even very steep. 

Mr. Noharuddin Nordin, CEO of Matrade (right) dropped by our booth

Surprise!! Our former Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Musa Hitam (middle) came to the Booth. Mr. Tamizi, representing  Matrade on the leftIs this guy, Fatih Gemi (staff from the opposite booth) resembling the model in our poster? 

The 12th Musiad Exposition is well organized, unexpectedly attracted quite some foreign visitors from the neighborhood countries besides the domestic's. The Trade Show is in conjunction with the International Business Forum (IBF), hence it brought along a lot of decision makers. 

Despite the wide range of industries covered in this Exhibition, FingerTec received quality inquiries from Kosovo Republic, Pakistan, Algeria, apart from the locals. Thumbs up also for Matrade (Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation) for their excellent works in arranging a Pavilion for Malaysia's exhibitors. 

The second day after the Trade Show, I have a meeting with one of my prospective customers in his office in Perp Tic. Merkezi in Okmeydani Istanbul.  It is a very large 13-storey complex that housed approximately 5 thousands mainly electrical or electronic products merchants' offices. It is common for buyers and sellers to involve in tug-a-war in business dealings in Turkey, and the whole process took me a 6-long hour. At the end, I gulped at least ten cups of Turkish Tea over their hospitality. 

Turkish Tea, Turkish delights

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ