TA100 DIY Launch in Jakarta Next Month!

Located at the Hotel Peninsula, Jakarta, FingerTec in collaboration with Retailindo Tech will be launching the much awaited time attendance products, TA100 DIY in Indonesia on the 15 of January 2009. Sincerely yours and her humble assistant, Tamy will be there to witness the grand introduction of this true standalone fingerprint time attendance product.

We hope Retailindo rocks the show because we will not be assisting in anyway on that day, on the stage. Our mission is to witness Retailindo, Mr Eviek and Ms Sui Ping make history. Don't get us wrong, we do help before the show though. We want the event to be as local as possible with no interruptions from outsiders, international people like us. :-) And once TA100 DIY takes off in Indonesia, we want to promote this product aggressively in South Africa and Mexico.

Anybody thinks their market love this product, email me at ana@fingertec.com and let's discuss on plan to conquer.

What's the fuss about TA100 DIY anyways? It's TA100 series but WITHOUT any software. All settings are done at the terminal itself and the reports can be saved in USB Flash Disk for printing. It's easy as ABC. TA100 DIY is suitable for offices with employees with less than 50 staff and those who are not interested in software (obviously!).

So, how many you want to order?

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

10 Things Uniquely India – At least from my observation

Last week I was in New Delhi for the second time, attended IFSEC India 2008 with our partner, Compax. Here are 10 things I observed which are uniquely India!
10. Auto is the king of transportation
The auto can get you almost anywhere at the cheapest price and the fastest way. Hop on any of those and enjoy the traffic of Delhi!

9. There’s something about Indian guys hair
Even the cartoon characters have Indian hair and the sideburns. Not a single strand is out of place and it stays neat throughout the day. They must have received some kind of training during childhood on hair maintenance.

8. Healthy snack is everywhere
Nuts, peas, dhal, rice with onions, green chilies and tomatoes combined is heavenly. Sweet potatoes, refrigerated water everywhere. What’s not to like?

7. Natural mouth freshener
As natural as you can get…

6. Crowded redefined
Nearing Diwali, the Indians started to shop and in places near the Jama’ Mosque, India gives me new definition of crowded. And it was C.R.O.W.D.E.D!!!!

5. Honking is a culture
You honk to avoid people banging you, you honk to avoid being banged, you honk to say you are there, you honk for fun, and you honk just because you are alive.

4. Cricket is life
I went to India Gate and saw every guy in Delhi trained and played cricket. Soccer is just netball for Indian guys. :-)

3. Negotiation is in their blood
When people said INR 1000, I said INR 5000, and I thought I was good. This is how you SHOULD do it.
You: How much?
Seller: INR1000.
You: What? This thing for 1000 rupees? INR250!
* If they didn’t budge, just walk away. You will get seal the deal in 5 seconds.
2. Vegetables are in huge demand!
Even the ice cream experts is a pure vegetarian. My friend from Chennai told me about this new development, “Chicken is a vegetarian”. And we argued the whole night about this new development and we plan to continue this argument next year.

1. Hospitality is No. 1
Indian hospitality is No. 1, the first time I went and the second time around. Thank you guys for the warm welcome and the lovely stay. India rocks! That's me in Indian traditional attire. Happy Diwali to all my Indian friends and clients.

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

I want less.

Humans are pretty weird if you haven’t noticed yet. We evolve and we adapt to our environments. Whose theory was right? Jean-Baptiste Lamarck theorized that giraffe had long neck because of its constant effort to reach the higher leaves. Darwin kicked Lamarck’s arse by introducing the theory of evolution where giraffe that reached the better leaves (higher leaves) survived and multiplied. Darwin went a bit further with his theory, saying that men originated from apes, which I refuse to be a part of; I stay with my human descendants. The fact is, humans adapt. We (humans) always go one way and then reverse, and then we start again following the pattern, to adapt to our surroundings. Take for example, mobile phones. Back in the 80s, the hugest the better. After a while those who hadn’t changed their phones pretended that the ringing phone in the handbag was not hers. Everybody rooted for the smallest Nokia where humans with thumbs exceeding 1 inch in diameter would not be able to use. When PDA phone was introduced, we went big again. The bigger the better and those with PDA phones had smirk in their faces when looking at those having mere talking phones.

Talking about FingerTec, I was with the company since the AC600 model (For the uninitiated (mostly all of you), it’s the-futuristic-protruding weird-looking fingerprint machine which we thought cool at that time and some judges thought the same things as we won several awards for AC600). Now, occasionally we use it to crack a joke. “Whoever gets the highest sales will receive a one-kind award-winning phone.” It’s pretty lame but we rolled on the floor laughing when the AC600 was introduced.

Then we got slimmer with AC900. So slim that many were envious and produced the same thing. One thing they didn’t notice, our AC900 has two strips of silver on the sides. It’s just an illusion to make us look slimmer like most women do. After the introduction of AC900, we shifted our focus to give more; more features, more capacity, more memory, more this, more that which in the end means more money for us and for our clients. While many welcomed our enthusiasm in producing more, one thing we failed to realize at that time was there were people who prefer less. Minimalists do exist, people! 

As humans, we adapt and we produce the machines for the minimalist. The simpler, the better they say. And we obliged. Thus, soon we will be introducing TA100 DIY. No software, easy-to-use time attendance reader, easy on your mind and easy on your wallet. My question is, do you think the TA100 DIY will stay small? By now, you get the drift already that we always go one-way and reverse to start again. Check out the latest TA100 DIY to go back to simplicity. 

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

Eid Mubarak to All!

Eid Fitr is such a wonderful and meaningful celebration to me and my family and I'm taking this opportunity to wish all my Muslim customers, Eid Mubarak. I'm taking a long break for Eid and please accept my sincerest apology if I couldn't be reached during this time of the year. I'll be back by Wednesday next week, a couple of pounds heavier. :-)

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

If you got it right, it sticks in your mind

This reminiscence is rather local thus my apology to my international readers. But you can always connect this story to your own experience. Anybody can recall this jingle? "Kiki, rasa buah-buahan baru, kunyah dan tiup oh seronoknya, kiki bubble gum". It's in my mind since I was about 5 years old, I think. The kiki cartoon character with red overall and yellow t-shirt floating in the sky after he made a balloon out of his Kiki chewing gum. That was awesome! The word "kunyah" (chew) was very vivid in my memory because it's pronounced "kuniyah" by a Chinese singer. What about recent Perkeso very jubilant song about how you should get protected in the workplace? I couldn't recall the exact tune but I remember that I rolled on the floor laughing to the lyrics. How clever, NOT! But it reminded me of Perkeso and I check my payroll slip monthly to make sure I am protected. There was another one that never leaves me. "Amanah Saham Nasional sedia menjaga pelaburan, setiap ketika... melaburlah segera...segera labur segera!", anybody remember this one? I love this jingle. It's almost like a pop song. We danced to it, we sang it in the bathroom, we even hope that Amanah Saham Nasional would do one more round of this jingle for its A&P.

The thing about jingle, if you got it right, it sticks in your mind like nobody's business. And, it's good for business! Literally!



This reminiscence does not come randomly. FingerTec is on its way to having our own jingle! By November, this (jingle) will be our in our iPod, in our jukebox, in our list of the most favorite song of all times. I have my confidence in the team that's producing the track. We will not stop at that, this song/jingle would be localized to other languages as well. So, watch out world! We are going to hypnotize you to get more stock of FingerTec.


by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

I have never thought that this is possible

The outside world is changing rapidly, yet I remain fixated in my office accessing the world from my laptop. Who would have thought that it is possible to do international business sitting down? When people heard about my job, the usual respond would be, you must be busy traveling the world. While the comment might not be totally untrue, I handle international deals mostly from the comfort of my own room, and most of my clients have never seen me face-to-face. I was indeed approached by a few local companies with stories about their success in handling overseas markets and that they have the good “cable” size which could connect us to the right “power”. We don’t deny their success but at the end of the day, FingerTec is much more comfortable dealing with local people who have Internet connection and know how to connect to their local buyers effectively.
Once my boss entered the sales department and made a good observation, “You are the leader of the United Nation,” he said. I couldn’t agree more looking at the team of sales personnel we have. To connect to the world, the importance of language can’t be overlooked. English could have done half of the job I supposed but how about Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Russian, Iraq, Iran to say the least? I said hello, and they say hola and started speaking Spanish. I ended up Googling what they said and they laughed at my reply, which obviously I cut and pasted from the Google free translation service. I took no offense because I shouldn’t be talking gibberish to the potential customers.

There’s when Regielou would come to the rescue and hola them back. Customers from the Middle East are not as hard but once in while I would receive an email, which I couldn’t figure out the meaning. They thought they had written in English like I thought I had spoken in Spanish. Months ago I would stare at the email trying to make sense of it but now we have Benacer who would reply in Arabic, writing from right to left to find out what they want. Do I understand what Ben wrote? Couldn’t understand a word but for as long as he’s bringing sales and the customer is happy, I know that he’s doing a good job. Because if not, we would definitely get an email with a subject COMPLAINT, regardless of the language they use in the emails. We are planning to hire a couple more different language experts to complete our mini UN office.

I learn from my years of “sitting down” with customers that their priority are fast services and having choices. Who would have wanted to pay and wait for long to get the orders? And it’s human to prefer choices and FingerTec provides choices. I stress to my team to not deny clients choices. If the clients need the goods fast, do it for them but make sure the payment is in first. J How do you want to ship your goods? We have choices of ready packages, loose items, bubble wrapping, no boxes, fold the boxes and put them under the carton, etc. You want us to source for accessories for you; we try. You prefer to use your brother to pick up your goods; we have no problem. You want us to quote for the lowest shipping; we find that info for you. The only choice we aren’t providing at this moment is payment term. And we are sorry about that but we are not going against the company’s no. 1 policy.

5 years back, I have never thought that I would have a client in Sudan who orders a few times per month, demand their choices to be taken care of in a matter of hours, venting their anger when we disappoint them once in a while and at the same time we maintain a very respectful and fruitful relationship with each other through emails. Our distributor in South Africa was screaming with joy in the email when we told them that we have the goods they wish for; a lot of exclamation marks were used, I can tell you that. All that happened virtually but very real. FingerTec will continue to serve our clients all over the world with all our humility we could offer. We believe that relationship is built based on trust and commitment. No matter that we have never met most of our clients, what matter is our clients taken care of FingerTec® brand name in places where we would never thought we could reach by ourselves.

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ