Family Matters

Naturally, everybody would want to be with their family during any holiday and festive seasons. Be it Christmas, Eid, New Year, Diwali, Thanksgivings for example, they have never ceased to gather families near and far. Work becomes secondary in holiday seasons; family is always priority. We saw tens of millions of Chinese pack train stations in big cities of China to return home for Lunar New Year’s family reunion, and the same trend infected the world during these joyous occasions.

At the time I'm writing this entry, the country is celebrating Eid ul-Fitr, the biggest Muslim celebration in Malaysia and other Muslim countries, which creates a huge balik kampung (back to hometown) wave. The traffics on all highways are heavy and bumper to bumper from north to south, and most of our Muslim colleagues are taking extra leaves, and non-Muslim staff have to shoulder more responsibilities during this period.

In FingerTec “family”, the non-Malay staff would willingly help with the workload of the Malay colleagues that have to fulfill their family obligation during festive season; and likewise, in Lunar New Year celebration, Malay colleagues would do the same for the Chinese co-workers.

Over the years also, we have gradually developed FingerTec products into a kind of family concept. For example, card access control models, the Kadex series comprising of Kadex, m-Kadex and i-Kadex, is not only having similarities in function, but the outlook also make it easier for customers to identify them from the same family.

For our R2 and R2i models, not only that they resemble each other in appearance, the R2i also has to be paired with R2 to bring it to life. Now, we are ready to extend these two bestseller models with another two more family members named H2i and FaceID 3.

Same family?

The attempt to produce H2i was far than easy. We had scrapped the prototype a year ago because two must-have features were absent. A new mould was initiated to accommodate the crucial features, after relentless discussions and arguments with the R&D and marketing department. The only consensus we have is that the H2i should be in the R2 family because of the R2i design resemblance.

For FaceID 3, it will be grouped together with FaceID 2 under the same category in all-model brochure, but I purposely place it side-by-side here with R2 series because it inherits the same design concept to strengthen FingerTec image for access control industry. FaceID 3 is not having a fingerprint module; it focuses on face recognition and RFID card module, a decision confidently made after our market research.

We would still need a few more months to deliver these new products. I can imagine how our sales team hates the fact that I disclose this information early because they would have to answer incessant customer inquiries about the price and the actual release date, which currently they do not have. But as family members, they would understand my decision eventually. :-)

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

One Thing Leads To Another

One thing always leads to another. It started with Norana Johar, our FingerTec Senior Marketing Manager who wanted to conduct a simple Reseller Survey from what she had learned after attending a marketing seminar.

Anything good for FingerTec always gets a green light. Our findings were eventually published in our last month’s newsletter issue.

But the story did not end there.

There was one feedback from a reseller in Latin America that particularly bothered us. He said he was happy with our prompt reply within 24 hours, but sometimes realtime handholding supports through Skype or MSN is important to solve certain technical problems. With a different time zone of 11 hours, he has never had the chance to enjoy a virtual face-to-face support.

So, we retrieved all the necessary data from our CRM system, and analyzed the support pattern, and eventually found out that the inbound emails from 6pm-10pm are quite significant in quantity; and approximately 40% of inbound mails are received throughout the non-office hours and 17% throughout the entire day.

We concluded that by extending our support hours until 10 pm, we could provide longer and prompter support to customers in the Middle East and Europe during their office hours, and this could also cover at least a few valuable morning hours for North and South America customers after they step into their offices. With an increasing number of customers around the world, the decision is timely.

This is one of the good news’ published in our newsletter this month. And we have already put it into action since the 1^st of September 2010.

One thing leads to another, this time, I am glad that we have again improved our support system to better serve a vast growing customer base.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Comparing Apple to Apple

A lot of products claimed to have plenty of features to spoil your choice. One of the common strategies marketers often used is Features Comparison Table.

“With the impartiality by comparing apple to apple”, the salesman says, how their products are far more superior than the rival’s in terms of value for money.

And you fell for it. Happily you brought home the gadget. After two days of toiling with it, you noticed that the touch screen needed a bit more effort to make things move; you have to reboot your handset every couple of days to boot some functions; or you have to hold it in a special position to not lose your signal.

Comparing apple to apple, so they say.

Unless you are a diligent customer willing to do some extra research, similar sales strategies have been proven to work effectively in today’s marketing gimmick.

In delivering a feature in their iPhone, Apple says that they have to go through tens of thousands of discussions to achieve better user experience and greater user interface.

If a company can pick up the tiniest detail in delivering a product’s feature, of course it can produce greater products than the rivals.

And that’s why you hardly see Apple customers make features comparison with other brands and no brands dare to compare them to Apple. This is the only Apple; apple-to-apple’s comparison is invalid here! Irony.

“Delivering the tiniest detail” is what makes a product superb. And we at FingerTec always bear this in mind.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Unforgettable Moments

Among the many places that we went, my wife suddenly asked me last week: which was my most memorable moment? Without a second thought, the image of dusk at the River Nile during our stay at the Sofitel Resort Hotel, Luxor, Egypt, popped up. And my wife agreed that the same moment would last forever in her memory too.

What a scenery!

The setting sun slowly descending below the skyline. Clouds hanging low. Strings of smoke swaying upwards at the far opposite riverside of the Land of Death. A gust of wind wafts through the palm trees. Waves rising and subsiding. Chirping birds flapping home. Extraordinary serenity derived from the scene of two yachts moored side-by-side to quay. We strolled on the manicured lawn along the riverbank. That was the moment our minds easily dissolved into; an atmosphere that was shrouded by an ancient pharaoh history.

What an unforgettable moment!

The pharaoh history in Luxor, Egypt

And this year FingerTec celebrates its 10^th Anniversary. Overseeing the high and low moments for the last decade, what are my unforgettable moments for the history of FingerTec?

I had, in fact, more than one. So I listed it down as a remembrance of our journey toward glory.

Year 1999 – The trend showed high growth in the Biometric industry especially for the commercial sector. Excitedly we decided to move in to capitalize on the huge potentials. And that’s the one decision that later led us to suffer for a long five years.

Year 2000 – We received the approval letter from the government for an R&D Grant worth approximately RM1 million to develop the first ever fingerprint reader in Malaysia.

Year 2004 - After our first and second model the AC600 and the AC700 hit the road respectively, the response was unexpectedly lukewarm. The high return rate was another big blow. The staff spirited at an all-time low. When R&D staff started to resign one after another together with the executives in charge, I thought our days were numbered.

Year 2006 – When my accountant knocked on my door to announce the improvement of cash flow and that FingerTec sales increased by two folds, I nodded happily and knew the new products, new policy and new sales strategy we introduced in 2005 started to get a positive impact.

Year 2007 – Our marketing manager tabled a statistic to show that our export sales achieved 70% from our total revenue.

Year 2008 – We finally completed the 8 support microsites with a CRM system sitting at the back to ensure service quality. All I knew was that our operations could be kept very slim while the business continued to grow.

Year 2010 – Webster, an integrated product is scheduled to launch by the end of this year to work wonders for customer service; and we expect it to lift us to another level, and to distinguish us from our rivals. A highly hopeful moment started to form in my mind.

But why dwell on the unforgettable if you have a whole future awaiting you?

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Management by Objectives

There are still many old-fashioned bosses who cease to allow the staff from using Facebook or MSN during office hours. They are afraid that the staff would spend time not for the company but for their own leisure. But today, it’s really difficult to block these personal activities in the office because to be able to do that, not only computers should be refrained from being connected to the Internet, they also need to confiscate the smart phones whenever the staff stepped into the office too.

The “work is work, personal is personal” era has long gone. The once very clear line separating these two different activities for an individual has turned into a blur in the past ten years to a further dotted line in the future. Unless you are running a labor-oriented factory, the mix of office and personal lives are inseparable in today’s working environment.

When the bosses helplessly have to accept this fact, they start to worry that the “inseparable” would severely affect the company’s productivities. It’s no doubt that modern technology can be a safe hideout for employees to chat away with friends online without being caught.

Management by Objectives, popularized by Peter Drucker (1909-2005), a modern management guru, should be the answer to their worries. Because the essence of Management by Objectives, is basically participative of goal setting, choosing course of actions and decision-making. With the responsibility assigned to employees, you no longer need to aggregate the actual time they spent for company or for their personal leisure. The objectives should be achieved within a reasonable time for the assessment of an employee’s performance; the mandatory office hours become a sheer complimentary for disciplinary guideline.

The understandings of Management by Objectives, aided by modern technology, some companies even make the Work at Home model viable. Office hours become home hours, self-discipline and self-motivation become the driving forces that make things work.

Management by Objectives is essential to run a knowledge-based company; but to ensure a successful paradigm shift, to win the hearts and minds of employees, is the first and foremost after all.

FingerTec has long adopted the Management by Objectives as our practice of management. When FingerTec customers receive our replies within 24 hours all year long, our office still open 5-day a week, not 7 days. The rest, we work from home.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

World Cup

The World Cup has finally over. I’m not a football fan. I did play footie during my school days complete with a numbered jersey No. 3, which gave me some pride at that time, because the then Malaysia National Team’s captain, Soh Chin Aun, was also wearing the same number.

Soh Chin Aun

The World Cup turns up every four years, and the heat creates a lot of pseudo-fans who spend a lot of hours watching games that they may not fully comprehend, including my sons and my wife. Being active in soccer in my youth helped me to explain simple rules to my sons, like offside, a goal kick, a corner kick, a penalty area and its impact, or when doing a throw-in, player’s two feet should not leave the ground, and etc.

“Daddy, do you sell FingerTec to X country?” My daughter would ask this very practical question whenever two countries came into a match. With more and more countries we exported our products to, this World Cup, my mind automatically counted, England, Chile, Mexico, Nigeria, Australia, USA, Spain, Portugal, Ghana, Algeria, Italy, France, Greece, Serbia, Paraguay, … those we already have representatives; and we still have Cameroon, Japan, Uruguay, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Korea, Japan…. to go.

The organizing country of the World Cup 2010 is South Africa. The place does not only reminding me of a great man, Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid leader who was elected the first President in a fully representative democratic election from 1994-1999; or diamonds (especially for the ladies), but also to me, Time & Speed, a company that has been selling FingerTec products for four years, with an average sales growth rate of 40% every year.

I still remember the time Mr. Tomas Sardinha and Mr. Donovan Bird flew to Malaysia in 1996, came to make a decision whether to continue selling China products that kept giving them problems, or to switch to FingerTec products that they have known only from our website.

Tomas, Toli Meimaris and Donovan, the three musketeers

The decision they made at that time should have free them from the troubles they used to have, I reckon. Because if their problems persist, they would probably jump to another ship, no longer working with us to promote FingerTec in South Africa, or proudly taking part in the Securex Exhibition every year, held in Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa.

By spending a few nights watching the World Cup matches; at least, my second team, Spain, is crowned the World Cup championship in South Africa.

Then, you may ask my most favorite team. Paraguay, a switch from Argentina ever since Larrisa Riquelme, a Paraguayan lingerie model (become famous after placing her cell phone between her boobs) announced that she would run naked if Paraguay won the tournament. And Maradona’s similar promise, I think, backfired. :-)

The lucky Nokia mobile phone

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Good To Great

“Built to Last” and “Good to Great” are the two-bestselling corporate titles written by Jim Collins. Both books are interrelated, centered on how great-companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into DNA of an enterprise.

I couldn’t agree more on most of the contents of the books and indeed, those are the ideals that I uphold at all times to run this company.

Jim Collins emphasizes on fundamental concept a lot, he said, “The world changes – and continues to change at an accelerated pace – but that does not mean that we should abandon the quest for fundamental concepts that stand the rest of the time. On the contrary, we need them more than ever!”

“The biggest problems facing organizations today stem not from a dearth of new management ideas (we’re inundated with them), but primarily from a lack of understanding the basic fundamentals and, most problematic, a failure to consistently apply those fundamentals. Most executives would contribute far more to their organizations by going back to basics rather than flirting off on yet another short lived love affair with the next attractive, well-packaged management skill.”

“Visionary companies distinguish their timeless core values and enduring purpose (which should never change) from the operating practices and business strategies (which should be changing constantly in response to a changing world.”

“They first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats – and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage “People are your most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are. ”

But irrespective of how great a book is, inevitably it still would have some blind spots.

Jim Collins did not appraise celebrity leaders, and said most of the good-to-great leaders are self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy – these leaders are paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. I agree on his points, but not completely, because it doesn’t apply to technology companies. For the great technology companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, FaceBook, and etc., their leaders are automatically made celebrities, no matter how they want to stay away from the media, or keep a very low profile life. Or frankly speaking, these great technology companies won’t exist without the invention of these celebrity leaders.

And his definition of good-to-great company is narrow-mindedly based on utilitarian hypothesis, the ratio of Cumulative Stock Returns to General Market, which means the assessment of a company solely relies on the ability to generate maximum profit to the shareholders. This is the biggest flaw of the book.

Because a casino or a tobacco company can easily score high according to Collins’s definition, even when they do more harm than good to society. And I don’t see any great loss to the civilization of mankind if some great companies like Coca Cola did not exist. And shouldn’t we consider the not-so-successful company built by the great inventor and scientist, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) should be greater than those who are given high ROI (Return On Investment) but with products that provide very little value “built-to-last” companies?

Due to the fact that he keeps ignoring social responsibility, when his third bestseller, “How The Mighty Fall” was introduced during the economic crisis in 2009, I lost the appetite to own a copy.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ