Writing Skills Exceed All

A lot of people misunderstand the meaning of IT Age and call for learning of computer to equip for the future. In fact, the keyword of IT is “Information”, “Technology” is just a tool or a medium to carry the explosion of Information that flooded our daily lives.

My opinion about learning computers has always been very clear. Parents need not have to worry about their offspring’s skills in computer. For nowadays kids, computer skills are natural. If you don’t believe me, let them play online games and they turn into a master in a few sessions even without guides from anybody.

Improve Your Language, that’s my call. Only with high proficiency in language, ones can easily and quickly comprehend information, and turn the information that cocooned them into the wings of knowledge and wisdom, to fly them to the gardens of wealth and opportunities.

Given this scenario: two persons, one piece of article, and one solution. One person reads but struggling to comprehend due to lack of language proficiency and the other one finishes the article in no time and solves the puzzle. Who wins?

When the Internet Age comes, people need to upgrade the proficiency of language from reading to include writing too. For example, as a technician, answering calls solve one problem at a time, one to one. But when you write the solution and publish it online, that piece of the solution serves many. Considering the cost of phone calls and the efforts it would take to explain, wouldn’t this be a better choice?

People write more than ever before.

In the past, social life involved much talking than writing. Now, we are using Facebook, we Tweet, we blog, we MSN, my conclusion is, we write more than we talk in the Internet Age and in the Internet World. If ones can polish their writing skills, who knows there might be another J.K. Rowling in the making.

Since 1995, when we started our unique way of global marketing strategy, our criteria of employment was not how good my sales people can talk, but I emphasized on how good they could write. And I even want this requirement extended to the technical team as well.

I read a book and discovered that theorists make a summation on our strategies and our Practical Branding efforts as “Inbound Marketing”. No matter what terminology they’re using, theorists and marketing gurus collectively agree that “writing skill” within an organization is one of the important criteria for “Inbound Marketing”.

Thanks to my staff who can write, with their contribution over the years, we have built a knowledge-based garden that prosper our business and benefited our customers all over the world.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Butterfly Effect On Secutech, Taipei

Butterfly Effect: change one thing, change everything

I used to think that the “butterfly effect” based on Chaos Theory was exaggerated. How could one possibly imagine a butterfly flapping its wings in Southern Hemisphere, may eventually cause a tornado in Northern Hemisphere?

But a more plausible version of this theory is proven true when the far away Icelandic volcanic ash emission gave great impact to the Taipei’s SecuTech Show.

Icelandic volcanic ash eruption

Volcanic ash forced cancellation of thousands of flight around the Europe countries. The effect was obviously seen with the thinning of the crowds at the exhibition hall this year. Mickael from Denmark emailed Tamy a day before the Show to cancel a training we supposed to arrange for him in Taipei; name cards we received from Europe leads are almost none. The sales reps from the organizer, Messe Frankfurt were busied tendering their apologies to exhibitors.

Robert Z. Heymann, a visitor from Paris, when asked about how he managed to be in Taipei, told us that he flew to Taiwan before the Volcano eruption, stranded here for almost two weeks. Another visitor from Europe told me he was forced to extend his vacation from Thailand to Taipei.

It was unfortunate that many potential buyers were not able to meet us during this show. I however, had more time to wander around the Hall, studying some new products showcased by other exhibitors, and of course, had more time to concentrate on fascinating ‘promoters’ around the hall.

Preparing for the Show

Despite of the whole lukewarm turnout, FingerTec managed to get good contacts during the show, which I hope, would yield a long-lasting and fruitful relationship with us.

Mr Castro from the Philippine bought 3 sample readers

Taiwan has always been one of my favorite countries because of the richness of their publishing industry. During the trip, I took the opportunity to visit bookstores and bought some books. No doubt, Taiwan has culturally influenced me a lot. Want to see what I have bought? Feel free to visit my online bookshelf, http://www.anobii.com/honseng/books

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Meeting The Legendary Guy of Bangladesh

Last week I met a great guy. Mr. Abdul Khaleque Pathan looks like an ordinary person in his late forties or early fifties. The difference is, he is a self-made billionaire with a success story that’s legendary in Bangladesh.

Mr. Khaleque (middle), Mr. Saiful Kamal (right)

One of the largest garment factories in Bangladesh

It all started with a very humble beginning. Right after high school, he worked as a truck driver. Many years later he started his own business, and now he owns two listed companies, and one of the largest garment factories in the country that are hiring over 13,000 workers. His Khaleque Group of Industries is also producing detergents, soaps and a series of cosmetic products, named after his youngest daughter, Keya.

"I began the business with 20 dollars (1,380 taka) in my pocket," he told me. With no collateral, bank loan was out of the question. Having no willing relatives and friends to lend him a helping hand, hopelessly he turned to the lowest of the low, beggars on the street, and begging them for some startup money.

“Every dime I borrowed from them, I make sure to repay them with interest in the following month. And my beggar friends trusted me.” Who would have thought that the beggar's ‘financial system’ had helped the ambitious and visionary young man overcame his hardest time in life.

He built the business empire in this outskirt hometown of his, Gazipur, which is 40 kilometers away from the big Dhaka city, and still headquartered his whole operation in this small town till now, with the main purpose is to provide more job opportunities to his fellow poor villagers, a fact which I learned later. The welfare he provided to the workers is highly praised in this little township.

Mr. Khaleque’s management discipline was shown by the rows of FingerTec TA103R readers that are laid orderly along the production lines.

"A total of 170 units so far and we expect more to come," Mr. Saifulhaque Kamal, Managing Director of General Automation Ltd., our distributor in Bangladesh, said proudly while walking with me from one end of the production plant to another.

“The automation of time and attendance process has been proven worth the investment,” said Khaleque Group Asst. IT manager, Mr. Nasim "It prevents fraud and saves us a lot of time and money.”

Mr. Nasim(right), and FingerTec TA103R reader

Saiful wasted no time from taking advantage of the meeting rather than it just being a courtesy visit; he struck a deal with Khaleque Group this time for the maintenance contract. It is no surprise his sales of FingerTec improved by 30% each year.

Garments being Bangladesh largest products and exports, the factories are seen mushrooming over Dhaka in the last few years. “Khaleque Group is our biggest single installation so far. Besides, we have a few smaller installations in garment factories that are closed to a hundred units. And we are expecting more projects this year.” Although the traffic is always hectic in Dhaka, where the General Automation office is located, that news felt like the pleasant evening breeze, soothing me in our way back to Dhaka after the visit.

The welcoming was really warm from General Automation

Thanks to Saiful, and his two partners, Mohd. Reazuddin and Shamima, for all their hospitalities while I was in the country, making my two days stay in the land of the Bengalis fruitful and memorable.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Social Responsibility

Don't be evil

I have to admire and give a big salute to Google for their bold decision to withdraw from China while others come in flocks to grab the huge market potential. I think the Google’s decision is the highest social responsibility one has ever shown in the history of the business world.

“What’s the big fuss if a government wants to crack into some dissidents’ Gmail accounts?” Some might ask. “Let them have what they want, we are here to make money, not enemy, to uphold of a principle doesn’t make you look more saintly in the business world compared to others,” and they might say.

There is this famous China local search engine that has been making a lot of extraordinary money to help advertisers concealing search results containing bad publicities. The manipulation of media had delayed the exposure of China Poisonous Milk Scandal in 2008, which in turn had caused more infants to suffer from kidney stone disease.

“Don’t be evil” is not just a framed motto that overhangs the wall of Google, they really believe in the motto and they put it into action. For a lot of corporate, social responsibilities are confined to those donations made to the old folk homes, orphanages, or some charity organizations, or boasted their products are environmental friendly with the objective to boost sales rather than to concern about the mother Earth. Some people even narrow the scope down to “as long that you abide by the law, have a decent job, you are no sinner and you have fulfilled your social responsibility.” Is it really that simple? How about those who work for a tobacco firm or a casino? And don't you polluting the air by driving to work everyday?

Go green to boost sales or to fulfill social responsibility?

Social responsibility is not just about paying your taxes, making some charity contributions to the needy, or claiming no emission of toxic during production, but it is also about your willingness to say no to any kind of bribery or kickbacks from any projects you handle.

With the FGW (Fire GreatWall) stands on guard, the access to Youtube, Blogspot, Facebook and Twitter is nearly impossible in China. But similar websites run by the local operators flourished due to lack of competition from the outsiders, but they have to succumb to the ‘agreement’ made between them and the authority. Removal of whatever articles or video clips deemed sensitive by the authority is a must. You could post articles online; and these pieces also could simply vanish into thin air in the next few hours.

“Even Microsoft takes no risk to enrage a government,” you might say. Of course not, from the retreat of a strong opponent, Microsoft benefitted by gaining more share for its Bing search engine in China.

No corporate would want to sacrifice their future prospective market to upset their shareholders. There is no financial analyst that would praise the move of Google’s withdrawal, that’s why I extend my respect to Google for their greater social responsibility and for their higher level of integrity.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Think Out Of The Box

Based on my many years of working experiences, I have made an interesting observation. I noticed most of the academically sound or straight-A students are struggling to think outside the box. Their superb accomplishments in school turned out to be a stumbling block in their career advancements.

I blame the exam mechanism in school, which I think have refrained the students from thinking further. If their aims are higher academically, the more they will be trapped by the retarded education system. I’m not saying that academic is not important, that you should be taking academic for granted, but ironically to a certain extent, being too academic numbs your minds.

“Don’t waste your time. You can skip these two chapters, they won’t come out in the exam,” I recalled one of my teachers advised us NOT TO LEARN. And most of the bright students purposely refuse to enter into an argument when the not-so-smart answers perfectly suited the teacher’s taste.

Good students almost always are obedient; they follow the ‘rules’ leading to the road of success. They always thinking inside the box (scope of the exam), and don’t see a point to learn more, as yet the rewards they receive are commendable. In the contrary, the ones who think outside the box will always receive punishment for not following the ‘rules’ set by the academicians and always end up with substandard performances.

Most of the good students tend to inherit the same “good” nature when pursuing their careers. They figure, if they were to follow exactly the instructions given by the boss, they could anticipate huge rewards, as received in the school days, but this time in the form of high salary, fat bonus and promotion etc.

But unfortunately, the working world does not always have the textbook or a set of rules that you can follow to gain rewards. The business worlds these days need you to think outside the box, the peek on the weird opportunities. Then, the normally outstanding students in the eyes of the teachers would turn out to perform like a mediocre in the employer’s eyes. Timid, play safe, afraid to make mistakes and taking no risks are becoming their common characteristics. Their adaptableness to the working environment is pathetic especially in the fast changing world.

The Internet age has provided the world with vast opportunities. There is no past experience or textbooks we can refer to when entering the new virtual world. You HAVE to learn from the mistake(s). No matter how conventional your business, you can revitalize it by tapping on this new technology.

I am always proud of our unconventional website approach and the 8 microsites we have for support. It helps us to grow our business across the border, and serve almost all purposes around the clock for our reseller ranging from technical tips, warranty claim, training, sales resources download and etc. All these efforts require a lot of out-of-the-box’s thinking process.

And after many years of having the training website; it is time to give it a complete overhaul. We are adopting “Flash” technology to make the website appealing graphically. Moreover, we include the online examination, for technical personnel who care for a FingerTec Qualified Technician Certificate. Sit for this exam, and we will mail you the Certificate once you have passed.

And again, a certificate doesn’t make you an excellent engineer if you don’t have the out-of-the-box-thinking mindset at work. The exam is just a basic knowledge for you to be more prepared when it comes to dealing with FingerTec products. The scope of the industry is much larger than that.

I’m proud to announce that our new training website is due to be released this month end.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

To Avoid Long Tail

The Long Tail Theory popularized by Chris Anderson saying that a powerful new economic force in the world of Internet allows almost unlimited choices. This is particular true for the new era where you’re a retailer and you offer your items over the Internet. The display of your products on the Internet is practically costless if compared to a brick and mortar retail store that involves high operating costs. At the end, the additions of small quantity sales of long-tail niche products maybe larger than the total small percentage of hottest mass selling items.

The Long Tail Curve

For slow moving products, this is a really good news. Amazon.com can offer endless list of book titles, but Barn and Noble chain stores have to make a wise selection of titles for display in their limited shop space.

The Internet has given us a lot of dreams, and proven some old theories wrong, and created some new ones. Unfortunately the Long Tail Theory sounds great for online retailers, but not for manufacturers.

We are the one who still have to abide by the conventional Pareto Principle’s 80-20 rule. We may tolerate 80% of slow moving items in our product line against the 20% of the hot items i.e. FingerTec TA100 and R2 model, but no manufacturer can afford to produce endless niche products that sell very little.

From product design, to structural design, to molding, to prototype, to sampling, to mass production, to A&P, the investment is snowballing, if the new product is not making a hit, producers have to lick their own wound.

Everyone dreams to become Apple, just one model of iPhone versus a plentiful of Nokia models and still making tones of money. We are no Apple, but what we can do is to limit our new products to a few models every year to avoid long tail, and pray for the newbie to rewrite the Pareto Principle to 70-30, 60-40, 50-50….

And come back from the Chinese New Year, we have finally unveiled the latest three models:

1. FingerTec FaceID 2

Yeah, it should be released last December, but to make you look good in color on the screen and not just you in black and white image, we had to hold it back until R&D department removes the final hurdle. It’s worth the wait. You can compare it with some of the rival’s products and notice the striking difference. The first batch of the Face ID 2 are all booked, we hope the good news would sustain in a longer period.

2. FingerTec Keylock 8800

This is another much awaited product. To lift the standard of conventional and high-tech fingerprint door lock combined, the effort and investment are three times higher than a normal fingerprint reader. We hope the market proves that it’s worth the economy of effort.

3. FingerTec TA300

It showed up in my plan a year ago. But the designs were shot down many times until I’m almost given up. But the tireless R&D team kept on trying to keep it alive, and we finally have a desktop standalone fingerprint reader. TA300 is meant for no-installation and low price easy market.

We would release 3 to 4 additional new products this year. To avoid the long wait and the grumbling resellers, this time I have to keep it confidential until it nears production.

But all in all, the more pressing matter now is, forget the Long Tail, what’s in my mind is to beat the damn Pareto principle’s 80-20 rule!

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Is Santa Claus Real?

The secret that had been safely kept for nine years was revealed last week.

Coming home from her school, my daughter, in a serious tone, asked me, “Is Santa Claus real, or Daddy is the Santa?”

“Why you suddenly bring this up?” I replied uneasily.

“My classmate told us that Santa Claus is actually daddy and the whole class agreed with her. I’m the only one who insisted that Santa Claus is real. They laughed at me and told me to ask my father.”

The family had worked hard to keep this secret. For a while I wanted to keep it that way. But if I continued the white lie, she would be a bigger laughing stock in her class later on. Since she would soon discover the truth from someone else, it’s better to come from her dad.

So, I told her the truth.

She laughed out loud at first, but later I saw tears welling up in her eyes. I threw my arms around her. 

What a cruel truth.

She told us that she feels happy and sad at the same time. Some of her long unrequited doubts are cleared now, but the anticipation for Christmas would be diminished.

I convinced her that all children would grow up to discover the truth sooner or later, but Daddy will always get Christmas presents.

“But I have to cut my wish list shorter when I know that Daddy is paying for the presents,” she replied glumly.

Santa Claus is children’s best fairy tale, most parents are willing to keep the secret as long as possible. When the real identity of Santa eventually unveiled, the love between the two generations grows stronger.

“That’s why I didn’t get my elephant (toy) last Christmas which I thought supreme Santa should know what I wanted,” she said with a bitter smile.

“I really went to the zoo and asked the keeper to sell one of the baby elephants to me, but he refused,” I joked.

The whole family broke into laughter, and hers with more tears in the eyes.

This episode happened a month after Christmas. And now Chinese in Malaysia are preparing for Chinese New Year celebration, which’s just around the corner. I would be taking a week holiday to be with my family starting from 13^th February. Despite the two days public holiday in Malaysia, all sales and supports enquiries would be replied within 24-hours. No worry, that’s our promise.

Wishing you A Happy Chinese New Year!

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ