Maneuvering Transformation is a Tricky Business

Thursday 30 October 2014 0 Comments

The transformation of the company started at the beginning of the year with a memo received from the CEO. A simple yet precise memo provided us with a direction to go, goals to set and changes to make for the year onwards. It sounded easy but half year through we realized that the reality is tougher than what we’ve imagined. The transformation process demands us to adapt to changes about the way we run our business, but most importantly we need to change on how we perceive the business, our strategies, our thinking process, and more in order to prepare ourselves with what’s to come.

FingerTec is in the process of shifting from putting focus on hardware products to providing solutions to our clients. We want to be a key solution provider for time attendance solution on cloud and at the same time move vertically in access control industry. The explanation sounds straightforward yet the execution needs more understanding and finesse to drive us to where we want to be. There’s a saying “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks”, somehow it describes this quandary rather perfectly, us, our teams included. After so many years putting hardware on the pedestal, we need to drive the mindset of our teams and resellers to set aside the hardware and concentrate more on the applications.

The call to change from TCMS V2 to Ingress for door access fell on deaf ear when people have gotten so comfortable with TCMS V2. Reasons for hesitation are simple. Many believe that TCMS V2 fits their requirements well and to change that would require them to explain to customers extra things that they are not familiar with. And, trying new software needs understanding, trial & error and intensive support, which perhaps they can’t afford to engage. In short, providing new system requires them to invest more effort rather than sticking to the old familiar ones. From our point of view, this change is crucial because as a brand we want Ingress to soar as a respectable application in access control worldwide. Hence, we have to stick to our guns. Come November we’ll start charging on licenses of TCMS V2 for those who purchase door access products. We anticipate complaints from many but to be fair, we have been repeating this message for months, cue: read the newsletter and blog more.

Find out the differences here

TimeTec Cloud is another interesting challenge that we have to overcome as a brand owner. Simply put, TimeTec Cloud is a TCMS V2 Premiere Version available online. Our task is to convince our existing channels to try TimeTec Cloud and start marketing it because the key to a successfully pitch of a new product is understanding. We urge all our channels to sign up for a free trial and in turn, promote and let your potential customers sign up for the trial as well. On FingerTec’s part, we are doing our best to provide important resources and kindly let us know which parts need improvements. On your part, we welcome you to get on with the program and reap its benefits.

When we have been so cozy in our comfort zone, we are resistant to change. But one thing every one of us must realize that, while change is hard, it is certainly inevitable for a better future. Transformation is hard but once we realize that we are the agent of this transformation and we act, the process will get easier by the day.

By Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

The transformation of the company started at the beginning of the year with a memo received from the CEO. A simple yet precise memo provi...

User Experience and Employee Experience

Thursday 9 October 2014 0 Comments

Nowadays we often heard about the importance of user experience, it’s a step further than of quality products and services.  Because even when you have achieved certain quality standards, it doesn’t mean that your products are appealing amongst the customers. If the experiences from the users were not pleasant, even if your products passed the ISO 9001 certification, or received high praises from your business guru, that doesn’t guarantee that your products will sell well.

Customers will complain if they found software bug or hardware glitch, but they are usually not vocal if they don’t get a good user experience. It is rather the issue of the “sense”, immeasurable like look and feel, the challenge for business owner is far too great; hence only great companies manage to handle the issue of user experience well.

                                           

Happy staff contributes to producing quality product that will achieve better user experience

When a company determines to go for ISO 9001 certification that’s meant to produce quality products, consultant will hand-down a checklist that emphasizes on processes, documentations, and etc; there is never a stress on the quality of personnel to produce quality products.  The role of employees is shrunk to some little tiny screws that bind the processes.

How could companies come up with ideas to upgrade their quality products to a level of lovable products based on user experience? In my opinion, you need to upgrade your workplace to a level of lovable workplace based on your employee’s experience. If whether a product is great or mediocre is determined by its user experience, producer should have no say in it; then whether a workplace great or mediocre is determined by its employee experience, boss should have no say in it.

A lovable workplace or a great workplace, according to Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin that co-authored the book, The Great Workplace, is where people trust people they work for, take pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with. Employees at great companies also say that they want to work for their employers for a long time. It is not uncommon for employees at great workplace to say that they even want to make careers there, and stay for the duration of their work lives.

                                              

If quality staff contributes to produce quality product; hence happy staff contributes to producing quality product that will achieve better user experience. This is because the highest sensational feel will spread around the products that only can be detected sensationally by the customers.

To attract more top minds that can produce high quality products to work for us, our company starts to offer scholarship to eligible IT students.  But to build a great workplace that can produce quality products to match better user experience, we have to improve our systems continuously, and a working environment with a culture that radiates the desired work ethos.

By Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ

Nowadays we often heard about the importance of user experience, it’s a step further than of quality products and services.  Because ...

TimeTec Cloud Loyalty Program – Reseller, Gear Up, Let’s Go!

Friday 3 October 2014 attendance on cloud , cloud attendance , TimeTec Cloud 0 Comments

Starting September 2014, FingerTec has introduced TimeTec Cloud Loyalty Program where customers will receive Time Clock Terminals free of charge when they subscribe to a minimum 3 blocks of TimeTec Cloud licenses. This program has sparked a lot of interests from our worldwide end-customers; the number of trial accounts spiked throughout the month.

When we discussed about this program, the major thing we wanted to dodge was complication being extended to customers. My CEO kept on stressing that, “when you think complicated, you will come out with something simple” and vice versa. I was rather perplexed by this ironic statement but what he merely saying was, think about an issue from all angles and have answers to all the problems, don’t burden the customers with complications, rather let them have it simple because we, as a manufacturer, should be dealing with the complexity ourselves.

FingerTec wants to continue the legacy of making things easy and therefore, the simple policy is introduced for the TimeTec Cloud Loyalty Program. Read on: (http://www.timeteccloud.com/loyaltyprogram/termsandconditions.html).

Once the subscription is completed successfully, FingerTec will ship your item(s) within 2 working days, no questions asked and no payment is required for the hardware. Connect your terminal with TimeTec Cloud and voila, your advanced attendance system is in place.

We Have Made It Easy, Now Let’s Get The Campaign Going

FingerTec calls out to all its distributors and resellers to get the TimeTec Cloud Loyalty Program Campaign going. Drive your time attendance customers or potential clients to open a trial account with TimeTec Cloud and test its effectiveness and experience the software themselves. At the end of the day, their own understanding of the service will determine if they decide to engage with TimeTec Cloud.

And For Distributors and Resellers, follow these steps to be TimeTecCloud’d!

1. Learn about TimeTec Cloud: http://www.timeteccloud.com

2. Download the booklet:  http://www.timeteccloud.com/booklet/TTC01/TTC-Booklet.pdf

3. Attend the FREE Webinar: http://www.fingertec.com/webinar/timeteccloud/

4. Become TimeTec Cloud Partner: https://www.timeteccloud.com/become_partner

5. Sign up for a trial account: http://www.timeteccloud.com/signup.php

6. Promote the trial to your clients: https://www.timeteccloud.com/signup

 By Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

Starting September 2014, FingerTec has introduced TimeTec Cloud Loyalty Program where customers will receive Time Clock Terminals free of ...

Establishing Malaysia's Cloud Readiness

Thursday 2 October 2014 0 Comments

I recently attended the 2^nd MSC Cloud Conference and had the pleasure of listening to individuals driving both local and international efforts for Cloud awareness and acceptance. For its second year running, each guest speaker took the same route and direction in their delivery of the content, which covered areas such as what is cloud, how can it improve your business, creating cloud ready apps and examples of major corporations and their experience with Cloud.

Cloud computing is not old news. It's not a newly introduced concept, yet, after many years of awareness, we are still in the ‘need convincing’ phase.

According to the Asia Cloud Computing Association’s (ACCA) 2014 cloud readiness index, Malaysia is ranked 8 out of 14 selected countries, which included Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.  We ranked 7^th in 2011, and 8^th in 2012.

 

There were three points brought up by audience members in the conference, among many, that I would like to address:

·      Does Malaysia have the talent?

·      Does Malaysia have the infrastructure to support Cloud?

·      One speaker expressed ‘bewilderment’ that there are certain Cloud providers that charge 2USD per license on a monthly basis. That roughly equates to RM6.

I spent two decades in Australia (ranked 3^rd in the 2014 readiness index), and having spent a year now in Malaysia, I can say that the difference between both nations is experience. Education bears knowledge and inexperience breed’s experience. The question is, are Malaysian employers willing to be patient and encourage progression within their own workforce?

I believe Malaysia has the infrastructure to support Cloud. In fact, the Malaysian banking system and Internet infrastructure is progressively faster than Australia’s, yet their processes are not. In simplest terms, the tools are available, but they’re not being made use of.

Yet, with Malaysia supposedly having a shortage of personnel in the areas of Big Data Analytics & Software Development, while working within an inadequately structured infrastructure, with limited support from local Malaysian businesses due to costing factors, there is still one company that believes that these setbacks are challenges that can be overcome.

Challenges drive Innovations

 

Yet again, despite these challenges, and odds of success, we released TimeTec Cloud, our cloud based time attendance, meticulously crafted by an experienced team of professionals with an awareness of our country’s infrastructural limitations.

A common concern for companies with established middle partners (distributors) is the question of how do we involve our partners when we are able to deal directly with end-users?

Within the past 2 – 3 months, we have released and introduced two reward schemes, the Revenue Sharing Scheme for our partners, and the Loyalty Rewards Program for our subscribers.

Loyalty Program Rewards*

  In short, we’re continually spending money on improving our service, we are sharing our profits with our resellers and we give away free biometric terminals to subscribers*.  

And while Cloud is still in its infancies in Malaysia, we will always be involved in its maturation in the coming months and years. Start exploring Cloud now and by 2020 we will be an ICT established nation.

As a guest speaker at the MSC conference asked, “Whose here to make money?” Our answer is You.

Recommended Article: http://www.asiacloudcomputing.org/research/cri2014

 By Justin Goh, Analyst, TimeTec Computing

I recently attended the 2 nd MSC Cloud Conference and had the pleasure of listening to individual...