System Integrator: Bar Code Systems and ERP

So now I was married and moved in to a condominium in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

It was the year 2000 when I could not stand staying home and my friend introduced me his friend's company called Data Collection Systems, which was a Japanese own system integrator specialising in bar code systems.

For a hotelier, it was a quite change. Fortunately I had many friends from NTT (Japan equivalent of AT&T) and I had personal interest in IT while I was in the hotel industry. Still there were a lot to learn.

It was the first time in my life I had Saturday and Sunday off and Christmas & New Year holiday. I have been working in the service industry since high school, so that I never really had proper Christmas or New Year holiday when the business is the most active.

The managing director was the only Japanese person in the company and he asked me to sell both bar code systems and ERP projects. The actual implementation would be done by the partner company called Magnus Consulting from Holland which had a branch office in Kuala Lumpur. As Magnus was a typical SAP house, I started to learn about SAP and worked with various consultants from Magnus.

Designing and selling bar code systems was quite fun too. I learned a lot about the manufacturing companies' operations: the clients were mostly the major Japanese manufacturers and logistics companies like Canon, Denso, Nippon Express, Shin-Etsu, etc. I travelled all over Malaysia to visit the clients.

I managed to close a SAP project with one of the major Japanese logistic company, and I experienced the full cycle of the implementation as a member of steering committee. And I realised that I want to do the project myself as a consultant.

One of my friends at Magnus suggested that I work on CPIM (Certified in Production and Inventory Management) from US if I wanted to pursue an ERP consultant career. There was a small business school in Kuala Lumpur offering a CPIM course on weekends and the exams could be taken locally. So I enrolled to the program and studied Supply Chain Management.

It took me two years to pass the four exams to obtain CPIM. I was happy for the result but not very happy at work. There were not much business or new project by the beginning of 2003 and the work became a routine and boring. Then I decided it was a good time to have a baby before I was too old.

Taking 6 months to conceive, I got pregnant and left the company in mid 2003. The new challenge awaited me: A baby and motherhood.