The Perils of Low Price

They invariably invaded the market vehemently, with promotion price that seemed to last forever. Low price was their only “weapon”. They swept the market and left the branded but less competitive products wept at a corner, praying for their lives.

Their success has made them stand tall for quite some times, until the next low-price predator marched in to give them a blow. There’s no loyalty, the market will embrace the predator without hesitation, turning the predecessor another vulnerable prey. Their dying cries of so-called better “quality” and “support” than the new rival has no appeal, because it never was in the consideration list and it was never offered before.

The truth of the matter is, price beats price.

There will always be some cheaper priced products out there. Big companies manufacture low price products by running production 24-hour a day, volume component purchases and low labor costs. Size does matter; that’s the economy of scale.

But small companies can sometimes do things miraculously. They offer almost the same quality products with even lower prices. They're like cockroaches when the mighty falls; they’d survive for another million years. To them, size does not matter; survivor instinct prevails.

Whether size does or does not matter, the logic is, price is easily beaten by price. Since price is their only “weapon”, the strategy of the battle has always come down to price war and instead of bringing them benefits; they gain so little even they won the battle.

I was informed that in some countries where price is being made a more sensitive issue than religion, due to the economic downturn, new competitors can easily pound on the same door using the same strategy, initiating a fiercer price war than ever.

Desmond Wong (left) and me

Desmond Wong, executive director of AMTC, a distributor, flew from Sabah (East Malaysia) to visit FingerTec last week, told me that they have been approached and offered with some products from China frequently, undoubtedly lower price than FingerTec.

“I welcome their price discount, but afraid the same discount would apply to software features, service and product quality and reliability.”

After we chatted a little longer, he finally broke into a big grin. “I can make better profit with FingerTec because the customers could feel the worth. If I sell China products, I have to succumb to market force by lowering my profit margin.”

And now it was my turn to break into a big grin thinking of the reality of the situation. Despite the economy downturn, AMTC's FingerTec sales improved by 60% last year.

FingerTec is not an alliance in the price war; in fact we choose to stay impartial. When two China products engage in a price war, we are always not included; but when the sales being awarded, we are not always excluded.

Why so? Because price is not our only strategy, we have many.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Is This A Farewell?

Ms Regielou Rolloque

FingerTec threw a farewell party for Regielou Rolloque last month, but this farewell seems a little weird to me. Yes, she left, flew back to her home country the Philippines on 2^nd January 2010; but she’s not actually leaving us; she is in fact still working full time for FingerTec.

As usual, she has to write a weekly report to the management, follow-up the sales inquiries, handling her Spanish-speaking clients through MSN, Skype and email.

I remember the first time she arrived in Malaysia two years ago during Christmas Day; she appeared timid and introverted. Was she going to survive for two years?

No problem, the friendly working environment and the helpful colleagues here would melt her heart. I told myself.

In two years, her soft-spoken Spanish tongue has melted the Latin American’s hearts too.

Whether she works from Malaysia or the Philippines, there seems to be no difference to our clients. And to us too. It’s just that, without physical presence, her colleagues need to assist her in some administration works from Malaysia.

This is the power of the Internet. And FingerTec sales and support system centers around it, tightening the screws at all ends, fine-tuning the user-experience for both resellers and end users, adding more value from time to time to the platform.

The result is apparent. The virtual has delivered more tangible results than the brick-and-mortar.

One day when Regielou came to me and told me, she missed her home, and she likes her job. Immediately I knew my answer.

You’re free to go home, and you can keep your job.

But you have to visit us once a year, because the colleagues here miss you, too.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Consistency Paid Off

I have a few weekly columns in some local dailies. And the longest period of column I had ever written lasted three years, published every Monday, totaled 156 articles without a single lapse. Despite my busy work schedule, I still accepted an invitation from a tabloid to contribute critique once a week, and it has been a continuous eight months now.

Inconsistency has always killed any brilliant new plan halfway through. In the contrary, consistency is THE key to a successful implementation of any plans. I'm proud of our FingerTec monthly newsletter, since the first issue was published and disseminated in February 2007; we never missed a single issue over the past 3 years, despite the extra workload and rushing for deadline drew excessive pressure to our staff, when their hands were usually tight, and minds were usually prioritize with some other promises to customers.

Because of our persistence, we maintain consistency and we take care of the content’s quality at the same time. I witness many companies much larger than us, even with a team of dedicated sub-editors, normally had a fine start but slowly lost their momentum and passion as the time went by. We only have our team of sales and technical personnel contribute their writings and assist with the editing of the FingerTec monthly newsletter for the past three long years; and my gratitude to them is beyond words.

One close friend of mine once commented, “Consistency is important, but the virtue can be more valuable if you tie it with some sales strategies rather than a mere newsletter.”

“But newsletter is one of our very effective sales strategies,” I rebutted. The consistency of the newsletter is not just the only one thing we pursue. The fact that we never overlooked other areas such as the handling of sales and supports through our CRM system proves consistency. People shouldn’t be too shortsighted in business. Newsletter is a long-term commitment; an intimate relationship we build with our customers; the results might not be as straightforward but it’s beneficial in the long run.

FingerTec Newsletter, January 2010 issue

In fact, besides the regular updates of our latest developments, Newsletter helps us to win over some potential leads that are selling other biometric products. It also serves as the checkpoints for our staff to contribute technical tips and marketing information to enrich our support websites regularly. Without the monthly newsletter, I can expect very rare updates of our relevant support websites, and the excuses would never be short of supply. Our Newsletter also provides a platform for our resellers worldwide to publish their stories, to announce their successful projects and have the opportunity to share with the others their FingerTec experience at no cost at all.

We improve the contents and design of our newsletter from time to time, and we have been meeting our deadlines earlier in order to publish the volume from the middle to early of the month. Furthermore, the consistency we pursue has slowly turned the process of publishing our newsletter into a habit, and the burden also has been replaced by responsibility. And we expect reading of the newsletter would also become a habit to our resellers.

I dare say that the consistency of our newsletter has improved FingerTec® image tremendously. A distributor from Africa came to the office every half year and she brought with her printed pages of our newsletter and asking for further explanation and updates on various topics. I don’t have a statistic to prove my bold statement, but from feedbacks I received and from my gut feelings, I know that this is true. My logic is simple, I reckon many people believe that, if FingerTec is serious about something they deemed less important, what about those significant matters? Go figure.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

New Year, Renewed Excitements

(Note: This is my keynote speech for the Company’s Annual Dinner on 2^nd January, 2010)

2009 is a bittersweet year for many. Just as the outbreak of H1N1 sent shocks to the human race all over the world, the economics turmoil hit, wounding many nations and businesses.

Even though we feel the effects of the merciless disasters, FingerTec had no time to grieve; we continue marching according to the planned activities. New products, R2i, i-Kadex, DigiPay, TA100T are launched this year, and Smart Keylock 8800, FaceID and TCMS Web Version are due to be released just around the corner.

On top of that we have some new products in our pipeline for 2010 too. But all in all, with the growing maturity of all the technologies from the hardware to the software, it sparks a new direction, a new diversification to our present business model.

It is a new business model based on Cloud Computing Technology, along with the debut of TCMS V2 Web version in 2010, and the built-in Web Server technology in our terminals.

I agree that there is no guarantee for success in any new business venture, but the mere idea of it has renewed my excitement. It is worth a try, a very serious try.

Our sales team should renew their excitements too this year with a new mission burdened on their shoulders. The mission is to guide the distributors through and through by using the new FingerTec Distributor Business Guidebook as the “Going In” strategy, besides the much-awaited new products led by face recognition technology and Cloud Computing Technology.

And in 2010, in conjunction with the 10^th Anniversary celebration of FingerTec, I proudly present to you the 10^th Anniversary Celebration logo, which bores a spirited tagline: A Milestone For The Next Leap. It marks our passed glories as a profound milestone, reminding us to be prepared for greater challenges in the next leap. Things without challenge lack excitements, don’t you agree?

In this New Year, with the renewal of our excitements, I also urge you to revisit our company’s motto, Think and Reinventing. Indeed, that’s the very fundamental principle that I want to stay permanent with us without a slightest change. On the contrary, it could be further enhanced.

I quote a few paragraphs from my previous comprehension article for this motto I wrote a few years back as a punch line to refresh your mind.

Think & Reinventing

The more you can think, the more valuable you are. Especially when we are now living in the Information Age. Information Age generates myriad of data everyday, data would turn into garbage if we skip the thinking process. Knowledge would be derived from data if we add thinking substance into it; and wisdom could further be derived from knowledge if more thinking process and analysis are involved.

I like this proverb that goes "Nothing can't be achieved, only when it's beyond your imagination." In fact, any good execution should be the result of good thinking and comprehension.

Thinking will lead to improvement in your daily work; improvement will lead to reinvention of jobs, of products, of services, of administration, of marketing and of everything.

Reinvention spirit should stay in our blood to give us more boosts and push everyday, to continually find out what can be done to improve our life, our work and our environment. Once identified, find a way, make a change, see the result, review the performance, and repeat the process all over again. I value creativity, but I value reinvention more.

Many Small Steps; eventually would lead us to a Big Leap.

I wish you all the best in the coming new year.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

FingerTec Distributor Business Guidebook

The whole company just came back from an all expenses paid trip to Shanghai. After a wind down, I am planning to spend most of my time in this last month of 2009 to write FingerTec Distributor Business Guidebook.

Company trip to Shanghai

What is a brand good for if it is just a logo affixed on a product? I always ponder about this, and I would not hesitate to do more for FingerTec. The Guidebook is in fact a round up of practical branding efforts we have done all these years and to extend it in an organized way for an easier adoption by our distributors. The main objectives are to help them increase sales, to improve cash flow and to reduce support costs in a more efficient way, I must say.

The Enlightenment

The idea had dawned on me on the last day I wrapped up my India trip, on the way to Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. I saw our effortless methods in strengthening Malaysia’s market and our global strategies in penetrating the international market can be combined and fine-tuned to further benefit our worldwide distributors, besides using our plentiful readily available branding materials.

The Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree for 49 days to find his Enlightenment, but he spent the rest of his life teaching the theory of Karma, which spawn from the Enlightenment. I foresaw we would face a similar challenge. It is not merely the writing of the Guidebook, but if there is a gap between a distributor’s daily operation and the Guidebook, how should we convince the distributors to change their business conducts that they had accustomed to, even if they agreed to do it the FingerTec way.

Buddha and the Enlightenment

Patching up the flaws

I always detect flaws in some of our partners’ FingerTec business operations that deter their growths. When I was invited to give a talk, I would share my view (of course, a broad one without too much details) with them on how to tap on FingerTec resources for better business expansion, but it’s normally ended up in futile because old operation habits diehard. This time, a detailed Guidebook with follow-up monitoring system may yield a more constructive result.

Our first 5-year plan started in 2001 was more focused on technological research and development, which laid a strong groundwork for FingerTec products to soar. The second 5-year plan with a global marketing strategy was to spread our wings to as many countries as possible in the world. For this, I summed it up as a “Going Out” strategy, having our products currently presence in over 100 countries.

From Going-Out to Going-In

From Going-Out to Going-In

I had made up my mind long ago that the next 5-year plan should be a continuation of “Going Out”, which naturally succeeded by “Going In” strategy. But this strategy is bothering me every now and then, because it seems to me that we need to have a string of different sub-action plans in order to deal with different local partners, or to set up operation offices abroad to ensure the success of the plan. And I also realized that if we followed this costly conventional path, we will eventually loss in a maze of disorientation in our future plan.

For 2010, also the 10^th Anniversary of FingerTec, this is the next 5-year milestone I set for FingerTec, to unite the Diaspora FingerTec partners around the world and to unleash FingerTec branding power through emphasizing the uniformity of strategy that extended from practical branding to business operation.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Stood Out In Mumbai

Since we were the only Malaysian exhibitor surrounded by an ocean of Chinese companies in China Sourcing Fair in Mumbai, the foremost questions we anticipated were, “What are the major differences between FingerTec products and China products?” and “Why should we Indian buy from your company while we are indulged by loads of cheaper China products?”

In fact, we received no such question at all. While thousands of Chinese exhibitors simply transformed the Exhibition Hall a China Town, FingerTec, among a handful of other countries’ booths available, stood out easily with local Indians handling inquiries.

I’m still obliged to answer the questions though. I think some of our partners may like to know since they’re often competing with some China products. I don’t see the necessity to handover detailed comparison list here, but discerning some basics should be sufficient.

With our partner, Compax Industrial System took care of the booth, I had ample time to roam the Exhibition Hall. In summary, the Chinese Sourcing Fair is all about a fleet of Chinese companies that couldn’t wait to part with their products from their manufacturing plant in exchange with cash. It seemed to me they’re more incline to deal with the seeable tangible products, all the invisible intangible added values such as system, software, service, branding, solution, are normally the least of their concerns.

Bhooshan & Imran, Compax handling crowds

Visit Compax office in Pune after the Trade Show

I agree that the intangible value might be less important for electronic components and consumer products, which constitute the larger part of the Sourcing Fair, but it’s hard to believe that security products which supposedly be more holistic in solution; software, the main driver of most security hardware, is also taken lightly by most Chinese players.

Without any doubt, low price is one of the best strategies. But for security and office automation products, it should be more than that because quality and reliability must be second to none. A question for users, do you want to enjoy (the price) first and suffer later? That’s why our partner for seven-year, Compax never turned to sell Biometrics products from China, although repeatedly approached and offered with attractively low price products. However, they did use the price lists from the Chinese competitors to negotiate with us.

In reality, FingerTec sales grew exponentially in India for the past few years. The more pricey Korean products also are in demand in India market. To me, this is a good sign. It proves that the Indian market starts to take other elements besides price into their consideration.

IFSEC India had just ended two weeks ago in Delhi; and now come the China Sourcing Fair in Mumbai. With huge crowds drawn to our booths in the two most populace cities in India, it should keep Compax busy for the coming months.

This is the promo trailer song of 3 Idiots which bombards the MTV channel in India now. The actress, Kareena Kapoor, wow, is so beautiful.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Confirmed. It's me.

Ever come across any face recognition system? Since FingerTec FaceID 2 reader is due to be released only in January, I would like to recommend Picasa 3.0 if you want to experience face recognition system. Picasa 3.0 is a photo album management system provided by Google, free of charge.

Picasa 3.0 with face recognition tool

Thanks to Google’s acquisition of Neven Vision, a company that specialized in matching facial detail with readily available images in a centralized database, three years ago. The technology was then being transferred to Picasa 3.0. The technology helps to identify all faces in your pool of photos in groupings based on their similarities, which you can opt to tag them later. Picasa will automatically suggest the tags that suit to the faces the next time you upload new photos to your computer.

But Picasa may also capture the face of a lovely angel statue standing next to you and suggest that she is your girlfriend (you can pray for the statue to come to life, if you want to); or identify Mr. Obama in a poster and group him with one of your colored friends. Or some stranger’s faces might just pop up from nowhere when your picture was taken with a group of passersby. With all these limitations, you still need to edit your photos by removing or regrouping all the errors to finally get the tags right. Still, despite all, it’s pretty much a useful tool.

How about FingerTec® FaceID reader, can it differentiate statue, poster or photo from a real face? That’s the major difference between 2D and 2D+3D (FingerTec® FaceID) facial recognition technology. FaceID will easily identify a pictured face as negative unless it is a waxwork that looks very real, or perhaps a twin. For Picasa face recognition, it searches the entire stack of your 2D photos; but for FingerTec FaceID, you have to enroll before performing identification for time attendance or access control, which lessens the burden of fuzzy logic search.

FingerTec FaceID 2

Biometrics recognition system is getting closer to our everyday’s life. Another application that has been quietly adopted without most people being aware is biometric signature recognition system in banking industry. When you sign a check, some banks have already transferred the recognition job from visual inspection by an officer to a biometric signature recognition system. The system will measure and analyze the physical activity of signing, your strokes order, the pressure applied and the speed.

Below is a joke that I would like to share with you.

“Could you please identify yourself, madam,” a bank teller expects an old woman to produce her identity card when withdrawing a large amount of cash from her savings account.

Indeed, the bewildered old woman slowly opened her handbag, took out a small mirror, looked into it for a while before raising her head, “Confirmed. It’s me.”

That’s the same humor phrase that we use in our brochure and poster for FingerTec FaceID 2 reader.

In fact, who can identify you better than you could? But the fact remains that most of us are nobody or merely a stranger to others; hence we have to rely on a medium to provide an unambiguous and undisputable identification. What else better than a biometric recognition machine to identify a human? And among the Biometrics products, what else better than FingerTec brand as a perfect choice? 

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ