A little about BAHTERA 2015

Have you heard about #bahtera? this year is the first year that MOF and partner agencies hold BAHTERA and truthfully, this is probably the BEST exhibition that I have ever participated in. Not only they achieved their target, they went above and beyond it!


  
From my part, it’s quite exhaustive, but not very tiring as my awesome team did a great job during Bahtera. We managed to talk to hundreds of people, more than half of them are interested in our products. I can also see smiling faces which is truly something that I like to see – happy team, happy people.

We tried a few new things this year such as preparing discussion tables and contests and alhamdulillah, those new gimmicks worked! Thank you Allah for giving us this opportunity.

#bahtera #officecentral

what have you done for your country? (or what have you done for the world, if you prefer a global scale)

Since I was young, I dreamt of building a house for the orphans. I like to help people. I dreamt of being an education minister, or maybe a welfare minister. Heck, I even wished I could be the Prime Minister!


However once I grew up, I don’t think I am capable to become any of the ministers, let alone being the Prime Minister. I still remember when I was younger, When teachers asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I would answer many different things: lawyer, architect, engineer, businesswoman, lecturer, etc, when deep in my heart actually I wanted to become the Prime Minister but I didn’t say so because not confident enough (I was quite introvert when I was in primary school). I always marvel at people who manage to blurt out that they want to become the Prime Minister. I still remember, that one night when I was in Form 4 at Sek Men Sains Selangor when I was taking care of a Form 1 class, this one little guy really took my attention when he announced he wants to become the PM (I was trying to get to know them by asking about their ambitions) Well, he has turned out to become quite a fine man now although not yet venturing into the fierce politics world.

Anyway, my post today is not about politics but about how can we help the country in our personal capacity.

I respect how Syed Azmi goes around making a difference everyday, no matter how small it seems to us, may have quite a big impact. We should help everyone, not only those who we think are poor (who are we to judge who is poor and who’s not anyway?). Can we do something to change our country and the world into a better place? Small things can add up into big things.

Some people may prefer to do big impacts. Some may have the capacity to do it and some may not.

As for me, my long term plan is to build an orphanage home and to ensure everyone in Malaysia (when I say everyone, I meant everyone, even those kids who have problem because doesn’t have birth certs) gets education. Education is the key to get out of poverty and to reduce crimerates. I also want to reduce poverty quick but need to think of something that is sustainable. Pray so that Allah gives me the time and capability to do this.

What have you contribute to your country? or what are you planning to contribute to your country?

How to Grow Your Business: Getting the right people onto the bus into the right seats.

How to Grow Your Business

Getting the right people onto the bus into the right seats.

Since a few years ago, when I became the COO (i was the most inexperienced COO ever probably when I started out since I didn’t even have any theoretical management background aside from the Engineering Management class from Stevens and just have a few leadership positions during co-curricular activities), I always try to understand my staffs – their strengths, weaknesses, interests, beliefs, family background, career plans, etc.

Since there were not many staffs when I first became COO and we did not have the financial capability yet at that time to hire many staffs, we designed our internship program to make it a win-win situation – we managed to get things done and the interns get real world experience.

This is where I learned to interview people (mind you, we had many interns that really underperformed when I started my first rounds of interviews and hiring interns – my interview skills sucked), I learned to manage bad performers (take note, bad performers CAN get the whole company down as the negative things can spread like disease especially in small companies!), how to train employees to get the best out of them and how to retain the good employes and more.

The most important things that I discovered is:
– When you interview, the academic background means very little (unless you are looking for very technical people), but the most important things are:

1. whether the candidate is really interested in the position and would enjoy doing the work (instead of just wanting to be employed so that they are not unemployed. or just interested in the salary offered if you’re offering higher salary – if he/she jumps to more than 3 or 4 companies in less than 2 years, that is a concern that you should address)

2. potential of the candidate (can he grow and take up more responsibilities in the future?)

3. does he/she fits in your team (does he/she have the core values of the company)

4. high interest to contribute to your company (are they proactive to contribute to the company’s growth instead of they’re expecting the company to contribute to them?).

– I usually don’t look at CGPA unless it is tooooo low (like less than 2.5). High CGPA usually shows they are good at studying and learning (good if the position requires them to learn a lot of new things is a short time) but doesn’t mean that he/she is good at working. People can excel very well when they are put into the right seats – right type of work that they enjoy.

I am Nisa. I am still learning – I love reading – I love Googling and I am doing my best to grow Authentic Venture Sdn Bhd to be the leading cloud-based solution provider of enterprise solutions in the ASEAN region.

P/S: I have an awesome team now and I love them very much!