Dare To Be Simple

We Make Things Easy!

IFSEC UK 2009 at the NEC Birmingham was massive. Being one of the largest security shows in the world; it definitely attracted many bigger players from around the world to partake. Earlier this year when Norbain pulled out, the news sent panic attacks to other participants who had confirmed their participations. Went against the grain, FingerTec booked after the news, taking advantage of the lower price offered during the economic downturn, hoping to secure European market. The shrinking of space in IFSEC this year was the evidence that the economy is limping. Nonetheless, not all players were pessimistic; those who carried on with the show, still made it a success for the industry.

Shall We Put On Heavy Make Up or Shall We Go Fresh & Bare?

I don’t have issues with companies with big budgets spending it on booth’s cosmetics. The better the booth’s make up, the better impression it conveys to visitors with an objective to secure more serious buyers. I believe that before any of them investing a lot of money for their booth’s cosmetics, they first have invested in research to confirm effectiveness of their proposed design. And perhaps it’s not a waste to spend some dough on feng shui’s masters as well.

FingerTec however, chose simplicity. Many were puzzled with our decision to be simple in exhibitions. “You should display more products”, one said. “You should have more technical posters,” the other suggested. “You should at least have an LCD TV installed,” another told. “Perhaps you could have two beautiful girls wearing less dress to greet your customers.” Thank you for all the suggestions but somehow we went with simple.

Thorough explanation on the brand value by the MD himself

In fact, we have a standard operating procedure “SOP” on how to make up our booth. First step, second, third and done! I’m joking though; we have like nine steps instead. Never in our intention to not taking any shows seriously. We take pride in all our participations. We simply need to be simple because we want to be consistent; we want to keep our value intact. We make things easy, remember?

Visitors Have Expectations

I also believe that if you were a buyer looking for a fingerprint system, you wouldn’t miss my booth. If you were not looking for a fingerprint system, you are not my target customers. At this junction, FingerTec is looking for small to medium sized enterprises to distribute our products and market our brand in their respective regions. And being simple at a show will not intimidate anybody. The important thing for us is to have a chance to explain to people who show interest, the concept of our marketing, and the value of our brands. Once we are done with our presentation, usually we will secure the orders through the third or fourth email communications.

IFSEC – A Gateway to Europe

It’s important to be in IFSEC. The presence of the brand is not only good for the UK market but also for other European countries. We have great potential clients from Switzerland, the Nederland, France, Czech Republic, Latvia, Spain, just to name a few. We secured sales from Denmark and from some companies in the UK. All in all IFSEC was a good show despite all the challenges and the simplicity of the booth.

With Dr Riyadh and wife from Iraq

With Prince and Theodora from Nigeria

Me, Mandy, Bob and Mr Teh

We also had the opportunity to meet our valued partners from around the world at IFSEC. We would like to convey our thank you to Bob Marshall from Video Marques, our reseller since 2007 for your kind hospitality. We thank Mr Faisal Kan, Managing Director of IPTEC, for keeping faith in FingerTec products. Thank you to Dr Riyadh and the wife for stopping by and for the special treat from Iraq. And last but not least, thank you to Ms Theodora and Mr Prince from Rapid Vigil from Nigeria for taking the time to visit our booth.

Strolling the city of Birmingham after work

Will you be seeing us again in Birmingham next year? A definite YES and please don’t expect any fancy booth because we dare to be simple in a massive show but rest assure that we will always find ways to improve on our simplicity to attract lot more customers, and no, we are not going to hire girls with less dress. I can see Bob is making sad face..

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

Asian Culture in Business

We might not be as casual as Google or having a cool boss like Richard Branson (sorry boss, you are not into daredevil activities) but we do have our own culture, which makes FingerTec the best place to work, at least in my opinion. When I started working some 12 years ago, people told me that if you like the toilet, you will work long in that company. Guess what? I have been working at FingerTec close to nine years. Current renovation of the toilet foresees my career in FingerTec for another 10.

Truth be told, Asians have a lot of qualities desired by Westerners. We are warm people, the women are obedient as compared to the same gender from the West perhaps most of our men too :-), we are (kind of) busy body where we like to know what happen to others and prefer to help if they need help and we have the ‘it’s okay’ attitude in many circumstances. In other words, we don’t really sweat small stuff. When the same attitudes are applied to the workplace, we can only make our customers happy.

I recalled one customer who bought cartons of FingerTec products and on top of that order he asked us to source for him a baby stroller. While most of ‘professional’ companies would not even consider, we included the said stroller along with his consignment. It didn’t make us less professional, only a little closer to the heart of our client. When a customer wants us to separate his order into cartons of different items instead of the readily packed products, we obeyed. A bit more tasks on our side but it’s okay. At the end of the day, the objective is to make our customers happy. When a customer asked for a favor to get for his son a birthday present that can be sourced at a better price in Malaysia, we said we try and we did.

The management also borrows the motto of Google, “Don’t be evil” to stress the importance of being nice, not only to clients but also to colleagues and competitors. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, some said. And I couldn’t agree more. An evil staff can influence other staff to be slackers, an evil staff can damage the image of a brand and an evil staff can spill the beans to competitors without having any remorse.

We do have some problems and crisis to attend to along the way but we don’t sweat small stuff, we help as much as we could and we don’t act evil. That is the best recipe to get us through the days.

Recently, the company employs an internal auditor to make our work more systematic. Not that we don’t have systems but his job is to make our current systems more methodical. He is astounded by our flexibility and right now is trying his very best to make us “professional”.

But the question is, how business do we want to be when it comes to dealing with our clients? A few things to be noted are, we are not lenient when payment is concerned; we are kiasu* (check footnote) Asians. We don’t want to be taken for granted just because we love to assist; we are sensitive people. We hate false promises; so do other people around the world. The challenge for us is to offer a business that is professionally conducted but accommodating to the needs of our clients.

And we believe FingerTec can because we always want to make things easy and we try to solve it all for you, our valued customers.

I will be in IFSEC next week. See you in Birmingham at Hall 4E, Booth 152.

*Kiasu - Hokkien adjective literally meaning, "afraid of losing".

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

A Change of System or A System of Change

Change is not as easy as it sounds. To change, one needs to have a desire to change and he has to work towards the change. Unwelcome change would definitely face resistance; it doesn’t matter whether it’s a huge or a baby-step change.

To change a clocking system from a normal card system to a fingerprint system is not a mere change of system, it’s a change of attitude.
Card system has ‘flexibility’ in the sense that you don’t have to always be you. Your buddy can act as you and nobody knows. Just give your card and maybe your password to him and you are ‘present’, you are there.

But for a fingerprint system, there’s no exception. The machine doesn’t accept your buddy’s fingerprint to claim it’s yours. It’s not so ‘user-friendly’ in that sense. So, the pressure is on for those who are not punctual or I would like call them “time-cheater”.

Therefore, to change a clocking system to a fingerprint system would face a certain degree of resistance from the time-cheater. It might cause uneasiness to some but at the same time it can also causing havoc and starting damaging rumors and false claims about the fingerprint system just to NOT using it.

Fingerprint Causing Cancer?
So does chocolate. So does deodorant. So does talcum. So does your enemy. That, if you believed everything you read was true. Believe doesn’t make things become true. I believe that my cat can talk, and she actually calls me ‘mommy’.

In an effort to tarnish the credibility of fingerprint system so that they can continue to slacken in their time discipline at the office, some irresponsible parties have claimed that fingerprint system is causing cancer.

A fingerprint system doesn’t radiate any kind of ray except LED light, which has been proven to be harmless to human. And FingerTec systems are CE and FCC certified, again to prove that the products are safe to be used by human beings.

But again, we don’t have to defend ourselves from the false claims by these lazy people because at the end of the day, their intentions were truly selfish.

FingerTec System Causing A Change In Attitude

When you-are-you concept was introduced more than 5 years ago, identity verification was taken to another level by biometrics. The presence of fingerprint verification data is important to prove presence in attendance system and to access certain spaces. Nobody can say he came but no data recorded or claimed that he was not there when his fingerprint data was present.

If this wouldn’t cause you to change attitude towards better time management, what would?

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

Because Complexity Never Made Anyone Feel Good

Even definition of complexity is very difficult to define. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary version 2000, complexity / noun 1 [U] the state of being informed of many parts; the state of being difficult to understand 2 (complexities) [pl.] the features of a problem or situation that are difficult to understand. The word complexity originated from Latin word complexus, which signifies entwined, twisted together.

I was introduced to the term fingerprint technology the same year that I bought the dictionary and the year I joined FingerTec Worldwide. Complex and alien words such as algorithm, minutiae points, biometrics, capacitance, and bifurcation were added to my vocabulary.

Minutiae or the points of interest in a fingerprint have 3 significant features. First is known as a ridge, basically a line on a fingerprint. It’s important to determine where these lines end, referred to as ridge endings. Second, if a ridge split, the feature is known as bifurcation, and ridges split in many places and at random. The third important feature on minutiae is a dot or a short ridge.

Combinations of these minutia features make up the uniqueness of fingerprints. And this is just the beginning of a fingerprint story. When algorithm, a set of finite mathematical formula becomes a crucial factor in its technology, the complexity of fingerprint technology intensified. Capacitance has passive and active, optical vs ultrasonic, ultrasonic has to use piezoelectric transducers, etc. While the topic of fingerprint technology might excite scientists and engineers, it is definitely not a cup of tea for the common technologically challenge people who are more interested in merely using the technology and to the business people who are more focused on how they could make money out of this technology.

The solid algorithm for fingerprint technology cannot be compromised in anyway in any kinds of fingerprint technology neither for criminal identification nor for commercial fingerprint. That’s default. However, the complexity of the technology shouldn’t be imposed on customers during the marketing of fingerprint technology products.

We tried that in the first few years of FingerTec business. Talking to customers like we were highly qualified scientists trying to sell them high-technology time machine. We explained to customers how the technology works, how the matching is done, even taught them about fingerprint through magnifying glass.
The question is, do customers interested to know how technology works? Let me give you an example. You pick up a mobile, you dial a legitimate number and it connects you to a recipient. You can hear his voice and you can talk for long until the battery or the credit finishes, whichever comes earlier. But did the salesman who sold you the mobile phone tell you how your voice could be transferred from one phone to the exact person you called? Did he explain to you the components that capture the signal emitted by your mobile? That’s what I’m getting at. Consumers do not need to know the details of the technology.

What matter to them are, the technology should solve their problems, the technology should come affordable and the technology should not come with a set of new problems to worsen their constant headache.

People despise complexity. The only complex that people like, and I’m talking about common people is shopping complex, and that’s maybe only true for women. That’s the reason why Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef is so popular. That explains why For Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide To titles flooded bookstores around the world. And also why many people fail math and science.

In any marketing activities, which target customers, boost on system’s simplicity, instill the idea of “we solves it all” for you instead of we sell you inventive high technology products which are new and perhaps you are the only one in the world who has it. Customers need to be convinced about efficiency of the system. They don’t need to know how the plane flies but what matters to them is the plane gets them to the destination. They don’t need to know how capable the pilot is because that’s the responsibility of the airlines.

Don’t get intimidated by brands, which boast on their high technologies, it doesn’t really matter to the consumers. Get to the heart of the customers, telling them we care. Like LG says it, Life’s Good with LG. Like Nokia who keeps on connecting people. At FingerTec, we solves it all.
And in attempts not to burden them with explanation about the technology, we shouldn’t burden them with substandard quality of products and services. In short, we have to be true to our marketing promise of making things easy for customers.

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ