Maximising

Your Potential

An Informative Newsletter from MSC Malaysia Capability Development Programme (CDP) ISSUE 03/2010

FREENET casts bigger

net with right certifications

ree Net Business Solutions Sdn

Bhd (FREENET), a MSC Malaysia
Status Company, is one of the
countrys leading IT Outsourcing
(ITO) service providers.
FREENET, headquartered in Kuala
Lumpur, provides six core services focusing on Data Centre Services, Managed
Services, Network Services, Service Desk
Services, Business Continuity Services and
IT Solutions Services all strategically
built to cover the entire IT infrastructure
ecosystem.
The company, which already owns and
operates three data centres in Malaysia,
has built an impressive customer base with
proven customer satisfaction testimonies
within just 12 years of its inception in 1998.
Today, FREENETs customers include
MNCs and Top 100 local companies and
organisations of all sizes from various
verticals such as financial services,
healthcare, IT, media, manufacturing, retail
and non-profit organisations.
Recently, the company was certified
in ISO 20000 (IT Service Management
ITSM) and ISO 27001 (Information
Security Management System ISMS).
In this interview, its CEO Billy Lee
explains why certifications add certain
competitive advantages to the companys
core services in reaching out to the global
marketplace.
What are the factors that pushed
FREENET to secure ISO 20000 through
CDP ITSM?
Strengthening our processes, service delivery, brand awareness, credibility, customer
trust and global positioning are among

CEO of
FREENET
Billy Lee

the contributing factors for FREENET to

obtain the ISO 20000 certification through
the MSC Malaysia Capability Development
Programme (CDP) ITSM.
The ISO 20000 certification helps us
to align with our mission of delivering
high quality ITO services that exceed the
customers service level expectations. By
adopting the ITIL best practices, FREENET
aims to attract the global market with
exceptional business services while
continuously improving its processes.

In other words, securing the ISO 20000

differentiates us against our competitors
by providing the much-needed global
recognition. This is in line with our longterm expansion plan.
Can you please elaborate on the efforts
it took to accomplish this certification?
The successful achievement and
completion of the ISO 20000 certification
was made possible through the incentive
Viewing Transformation | MSC Malaysia |

Cover Story

The
certifications
provides
us the
competitive
advantage
to expand
our client
base by
continuously
improving
our service
quality.

programme offered by MSC Malaysia CDP

and the strong team work demonstrated by
FREENETs top management, its respective
process owners and overall staff.
In the inception stage, countless meetings
and awareness training sessions were conducted
with the various parties involved. Brainstorming
sessions were also included to fine tune all processes and address any possible loopholes. All
process owners attended the ITIL v3 Foundation
course and were required to sit for the exam.
The focus to implement and practice according
to the standards specified by ISO 20000 was
emphasised and made known to all staff.
Your opinion on FREENETs successful
reappraisal of ISO 27001?
Processes are implemented according to
ISO 27001 since 2007 when the certification
was awarded to FREENET. Our successful
reappraisal is an evidence of our successful
implementation of the ISO 27001 standards that
are put in place, reviewed and verified from
time to time.
How will these certifications help in
FREENET overall business?
ISO 20000 is a highly respected international IT
Service Management standard that promotes
an integrated process approach to effectively
deliver services to meet business and customer
requirements. The standard is aligned with the
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the global de
facto standard for IT Service Management.
For FREENET, the certification provides us
the competitive advantage to expand our client
base by continuously improving our service
quality. The certification affirms FREENETs
proven ability to meet strict requirements in

Welcome Note

his issue of MSC Malaysia CDP eNewsletter shines the spotlight on Free Net Business
Solutions Sdn Bhd (FREENET) one of
Malaysias leading IT Outsourcing service
provider. What marks FREENET apart
from its counterparts is its capabilities through rational
deployment of solutions backed by the ISO 20000 and
ISO 27001 standards compliance.
Read all about FREENETs efforts in securing these
certifications and how it has helped the company in its
push for the global market.
By the way, have you thought about securing certifications lately? The time is now.

Ir Dr Karl Ng,
Head of Capability
Development Department

| MSC Malaysia | Viewing Transformation

delivering the highest level of client services

that meet their business needs particularly with
our Data Centre Services, Managed Services,
Service Desk Services and Network Services
which are certified in ISO 20000 and ISO
27001.
By adopting the best practices, the company
as a whole can improve the overall cost efficiency, ensure stability of service, develop
consistent quality, churn out predictable results
and outcomes. More importantly, the ISO
20000 and ISO 27001 certifications offer global
recognition to FREENET.
How has MSC Malaysia CDP assisted in
achieving these certifications?
The division assists MSC Malaysia Status
companies such as FREENET by offering trainings, coaching, course financial incentives and
guidance throughout the journey of obtaining
the certifications.
CDP not only assists companies and individuals in achieving the ISO certifications more costeffectively but also, enables additional benefits
from monthly dialogues, seminars, clinics and
workshops developed to gear the MSC Malaysia
status companies to achieve certifications that
would ensure business continuity.
What are FreeNets plan for market expansion this year?
FREENET is expanding and its target focus
has been widened to MNCs and the local
corporations, namely the Top 100 companies
in Malaysia. The ISO 20000 and ISO 27001
certifications have brought about added value
and competitive advantages to our core services.
It is our vision to penetrate the markets regionally and internationally.

Message

In The Spotlight

Enhancing your brand through

intensive CDP programme

any small and medium

enterprises (SMEs) neglect branding efforts in
the face of other urgent
business matters, especially funding and product development.
This could indeed prove to be a costly
business misstep as a companys proper
branding is undeniably a pivotal element
for success.
Firstly, what makes your product
stands out than the rest?
We at MSC Malaysia Capability Development Programmes
(CDP) believe that each organisation must have its own personality,
identity and set of characteristics to
flourish in a competitive marketplace.
It is imperative that the differentiation
must be seen in the products and services.
Also, each product brand must clearly
convey the organisations focus, credibility
and uniqueness.
To improve and develop MSC Malaysia
status companies competitive advantage,
CDP has selected 21 firms to take part in its
CDP Marketing: Product Brand Development programme. Among the companies
participating is MSC Technology Centre, a
consulting firm specialising in IT, AEXIO
Sofware Sdn Bhd, cellular software and
Solutions Company, iTAC MSC Outsourcing Sdn Bhd, a software outsourcing
services to banking industry.
Prior to joining the programme,
companies had to apply and
were later screened to
ensure that they have
the right commitment.
This is key as these
selected companies

have to go through an intensive fivemonth programme that will equip them

with specific product branding ideas and
practical marketing strategies that can be
easily and immediately applied to enhance
their products brand.

Details

The programme
uses conceptual,
hands-on and consultative training
methodology. It includes

21 compa
ies have
been selen
c
take part inted to
Marketing: CDP
Brand Deve Product
pment
programlo
me.

monthly assessments, mentoring service,

scenario consulting service, sharing of best
practices and detailed reporting on the
progress and performance of participating
companies. It will help participants to:
Execute effective branding ideas &
marketing strategies to develop a differentiated brand to compete globally;
Understand the essentials to build a
competitive and sustainable brand by
developing a sustainable Unique Value
Proposition;
Understand the 10 branding strategies
to develop and build a sustainable and
differentiated brand;
Gain knowledge on current
world-class Product Branding benchmark practices
and case studies;
Develop a clear understanding of who is in
charge of marketing
strategies and how to
achieve the desired
branding results.
The event will be
conducted by CDP together with its programme partner
Hewlett-Packard Malaysia.

MSC Malaysia | National ICT Initiative |

Leading Thoughts

The Need for Market

Research in Malaysia
By Dr George Leow Chee Seng

arket research is an essential

part of any business that wants to
offer products or services that are
focussed and well targeted. It is viewing
the entire business from the customers
viewpoint, which takes into account
every aspect of the marketing mix from
product to price, distribution channels
and marketing communications. All these
factors affect the customers response to a
product or service. Business decisions that
are based on good intelligence and good
market research can minimise risk and
pay dividends by making market research
part and parcel of the business process.
In general, businesses that invest time in
market research increase their chances of
succeeding in international markets.
Why do I need to invest in market
research? I am just running a small enterprise! This statement is extremely
common when a consultant is trying to
approach SMIs or SMEs to conduct a
market research to enhance their efficiency
and effectiveness when running the business. Unfortunately, the awareness on the
importance of market research is
limited among Malaysians.
Hence, effort and resources
are wasted on trials and errors
stage when running business. (Hair et. al., 2003).
Your company may begin
exporting without any
market research
if it re-

| MSC Malaysia | National ICT Initiative

ceives unsolicited orders from abroad.

However, you will find even more promising markets by conducting a systematic
research.
Market research helps better communicate and understanding of success
in business. I have conducted a research
to compare customer satisfaction among
patients from private and public hospitals.
From the research, we have identified elements that could boost up their customer
satisfaction to gear up key performance
index (KPI) of the organisation.
Consequently, current customers experiences are valuable source of information,
not only will they allow you to gauge how
well you currently meet their expectations,
they can also tell you where you are getting
things right and more importantly where
you are getting things wrong. By asking the
customer, you are not only showing them
that you care but you also take the guess
work out of customer services. Indirectly,
the organisation has implemented branding
strategy to increase the market share.
Consumer behaviour plays a vital role if
you are planning to operate a new service.
We need to know the preconceived attitudes
that people have and then market research
can help, not only in evaluating the
potential for a new idea, but also
by identifying the areas where a
marketing research needs to be
honed. Market research helps
you identify opportunities. By
understanding the consumer
behaviour, we could deliver
convincing sales presentations, shorten sales cycle,
create effective marketing
strategies, boost your revenue and profits, radically
improve your ability to
influence others and close
more deals. Hence, understanding consumer through
market research stimulates
organisation to create a wow
marketing plan.
Nevertheless, market research creates
benchmarks and helps an organisation
measures their progress and analyse the
corporate effectiveness through corporate
research. Several researches are proposed
in the organisation which includes assessing the image of the company (brand
audit research). In advertising research,
readership feedbacks and advertising recall
are common to assess the effectiveness
of advertisements. Early research may
highlight glaring holes in your
service or short falls in your

product, regular market research will show

if improvements are being made and, if
positive, will help motivate a team.
Organisation can conduct sales analysis
to determine sales trend and suitable strategies are applied and planned to ensure
the optimum growth of the organisation
through assessing market potential, estimation of demand for a product, market share
estimation, study seasonal variation for a
product, market segmentation studies, estimate size of the market and need analysis to
find out where the product fits in. Through
effective marketing research, time, effort
and resources can be utilized at optimum
state to benefit the organisation.
In summary, market research consists of
a plan that charts how relevant data is to be
collected and analyzed so that the results
are useful and relevant for making marketing decisions. Once the research and the
related analysis are completed, the results
are communicated to management.
This provides management with
in-depth information regarding crucial
factors that have an impact on the targeted
market and existing marketing mix. Market
research allows management to make
the changes necessary for better results
through adopting a proactive approach.
Since marketing research is crucial, SMIs
and SMEs should include market research
in their business plans.
* The above article is published with permission from the author Dr. Leow, British
Institute of Homeopathy. The article was
published in the OH! Magazine Issue Jan/
Feb 2010.

About the Author

Dr. Leow is involved in research,

consulting, lecturing for several
organisations around the globe.
Dr. Leow holds a Certificate in
Quantitative Research Method
(University of Georgia, USA), MBA
from UPM, Doctorate of Business
Administration (DBA) from United
Business Institute (UBI), Belgium.
Dr. Leow is the recipient of the
Young Investigator Award at the
32th Paediatric Conference. Dr.
Leow is also involved in several
researches under Intensive Priority
Research Area (IPRA) and he is
currently a member and trainer of
IMM.

by Dr George Leow Chee Seng

s it possible to understand a persons

personality through handwriting? It
seems impossible but it really is possible
to do so. Personality inventory can be categorised into projective and non-projective
(Kathleen, 1978). Projective personality
inventory uses pictures or diagrams to
capture responses from the respondent.
Hence, this method is a subjective form of
personality inventory.

Graphology

Graphology or handwriting analysis is the

science of interpreting a persons character
from his/her personal handwriting. It is
categorised as a projective personality
test. The term graphology comes from two
Greek words that mean to learn something
about writing and the inferring of character
or aptitude from it.
Think of handwriting as a type of EEG
(brain wave recording) of personality. In
fact, some handwriting analysts describe
brainwriting could be a more descriptive
term than handwriting analysis. Distortions
of the result due to the
subjects knowledge that
he is being analysed is
common in most personality analysis tools.
Graphology can analyse a persons personality
without the person even knowing that he is
being analysed. Through this method, we
can reduce the possibility of inaccuracies
due to conscious or unconscious efforts by
the subject to affect the result.
It is interesting to learn what your
handwriting is able to tell you. Graphology is used widely in varied
applications. The common application of graphology is in
vocational guidance. Teachers
often find they can use it to
bring out better behaviour in
problem students.
While graphology cannot
point to a specific career on
the basis of a handwriting
sample, it can certainly point someone in
the right direction
or away from the
wrong direction,
based on personality, abilities and
inclinations.
Besides vocational guidance, a
handwriting analysis
of both partners can
confirm compatibilities, point out potential
trouble spots and help
the couple to understand and
accept each others weaker
points.
People who investigate
genealogy have used the service of graphologists to help

You are what you write

them better understand their ancestors
through an analysis of their handwriting.
Graphologists can track clients progress in
therapy, and some law enforcement agencies use handwriting analysis to determine
how dangerous a suspect is, as well as
truthfulness of victim and witness
statements.
Graphology is now being
used increasingly by employers
or assessment centres to help
in personnel selection. It is
especially used at the short
listing stages. Small companies, in particular, need to avoid
friction and personality clashes
between staff as well as getting the right person for
the right job.
Some candidates
are better at interviews
than at their actual
jobs; while others
blow their chances
through nervousness. A handwriting
analysis can give
a more complete
picture.

Practical
graphology

In practice, its better to use graphology to analyse the

handwriting of a
pure untainted
subject, rather

than to put the subject under unnatural

stress of filling out a long questionnaire.
Furthermore, a single personality questionnaire may reveal a single dimension of
personality.
However, two handwriting samples
of the same person on different occasions may reveal different behavioural
characteristics.
In fact, handwriting analysis is an art.
Each graphologist has different analytical
styles. I have designed my own worksheet
to help me to complete my handwriting
analysis. In fact, there are a lot of computer
programmes that offer the same service.
However, I strongly believe, handwriting analysis is an art that needs human
interpretation and the following are among
the key factors I would be looking at:
1. Margin of page;
2. Lines;
3. Height of writing;
4. Slope or slant of writing;
5. Word endings;
6. Round and angular writing;
7. Plain and fancy writing;
8. Regular and irregular writing;
9. Wide and narrow writing; and
10. Thin and thick writing.
This is then followed by a 30-point
worksheet analysis:
1. Regularity
2. Rhythm
3. Size
4. Zones
5. Connection, degree of connection,
form of
6. Horizontal tension
MSC Malaysia | National ICT Initiative |

Leading Thoughts

Announcement
7. Shading
8. Slant
9. Pressure
10. Margins
11. Punctuation
12. Spacing between words
13. Spacing between lines
14. Direction of the lines
15. Fullness and leanness
16. Width of letters
17. Covering strokes
18. Leftward and rightward tendencies
19. Initial strokes
20. Terminal strokes
21. Form of letters
22. Speed
23. Signature and underscore
24. I-dots and t bars
25. Personal pronoun I
26. Form Level
27. Reliability factors (if applicable)
28. Tension and release (stress factors)
29. Degree of attention (deal with any
characteristics that are not covered
in the general worksheet. Eg. stimulus
words, symbols, envelop if different
from general spacing)
30. The analysis

they are made aware of it.

* The above article is published with permission from the author Dr. Leow, British
Institute of Homeopathy. The article was
published in the OH! Magazine Issue Jan/
Feb 2010.

About the Author

Dr. Leow is involved in research,

consulting, lecturing for several
organisations around the globe.
Dr. Leow holds a Certificate in
Quantitative Research Method
(University of Georgia, USA), MBA
from UPM, Doctorate of Business
Administration (DBA) from United
Business Institute (UBI), Belgium.
Dr. Leow is the recipient of the
Young Investigator Award at the
32th Paediatric Conference. Dr.
Leow is also involved in several
researches under Intensive Priority
Research Area (IPRA) and he is
currently a member and trainer of
IMM.

Limitation

It is important to identify the limitation of

handwriting analysis to avoid unrealistic
expectations during analysis.
From the handwriting
analysis, we would
not be able to
determine the
age or gender
of the writer.
What it actually
does is to indicate
masculine and feminine influence, which
is present in both sexes. It
reveals maturity rather than
actual chronological age.
Nor can graphology predict
happenings and future events. From
graphology, we can point to a persons
potential that needs to be brought out once

MSC Malaysia Capability Development Programme

Maximising Your Potential

MSC Malaysia Capability Development Programme (CDP) is an MDeC initiative

designed to help ICT organisations and individuals to maximise their potentials
by adopting global good practices, process improvements and professional
certifications. It aims at enabling them to focus on their core competency
and hone their competitive edge. CDP programmes help MSC Malaysia Status
companies achieve process improvement, professional development, product
assessment and assistance, and business management through knowledge
sharing, a structured development programme, competency enhancement and
funding.

| MSC Malaysia | National ICT Initiative

Share with us the story and

experience of your organisation
or your participation in any of
our Capability Development
Programme.
If you have experienced the
improvements and fulfilled your
achievements through adopting
any of global best practices
or business improvement
workshops through our
capability events, we would
love to hear your success story
in no more than 1000 words.
Stand a chance to win an Apple
MacBook Pro and a free Project
Management training course if
your story is the most inspiring.
The closing deadline is Oct 30,
2010.
For more information, please
log on to: cdp.mscmalaysia.my/
contest/index.html

Upcoming Events
ISO 9001:2008 Lead Assessor
Course
Date: 4-6 & 11-12 October 2010
Time : 9am - 5pm
Venue : MSC Malaysia
Innovation Centre

Professional Certification
for Business Continuity
Management & Disaster
Recovery Preview Session
Date : 14 October 2010
Time : 9.30am - 11.45am
Venue : MSC Malaysia
Innovation Centre

Global Trend of ITSM

itSMF Malaysia 3rd Annual
Conference
Date : 18 October 2010
Time : 9am - 5.30pm
Venue : Cititel Mid Valley

CDP Roadshow

Date : 9 November 2010

Time : 9am - 6pm
Venue : Crowne Plaza Mutiara
Hotel
For more information on these
and other events please visit:
www.mscmalaysia.my/cdp