Lipposhop (Academy)

Talking about where I am today certainly will drag me back to Lippo Shop (LS). The place where I got to know SAP for the first time.

LS was ventured by Lippo group to extent their retail business into online. It was year 2000 when many people and entrepreneurs tried their luck in internet business. The new economy. The palm oil on that era!

It was not only the place where I learned SAP, but the fundamental of logistics processes as well. Putaway, picking, bin, replenishment, goods receive, goods issue, transfer posting, physical inventory were added into my vocabularies.

But too bad. The business did not run well. It was over investment and did not make money. The online shopping was not a popular idea yet. Around one a half year later LS closed its business, few months after I left it in Oct 2001. At the end LS decided to give the golden shakehands to the employees which was still a controversy when I resigned. Erghh..not my luck!

Nov 2001 my life in consulting began ...

After All It Must Be Something Lovely

Nowadays I am getting used to have 'compliment' about my gray hair.

It seems every SAP project has contributed to that wise-signature. Thank you to all my clients as the contributors and SAP itself as the biggest one.

Although each project has different characteristics in term of industry, location, complexity, culture and organization but almost all have one thing in common. It is very tiring! Mentally and physically. From project preparation until live it takes a lot of effort and tension. Long working hours, frustation over the program bugs or system limitation, stuck in issue logs and being trapped in conflict of interest.

*

We all the project members gathered into one room. The priest was there, invited by the business owner, he led the pray for the system recovery. In another room, few people were working hard to restore the data. Not so long after going live the system was collapse and the data backup was failed to be restored. The rumor said we could get the sue for this accident.

*

Suddenly RI, our project manager, bang his ballpoint in the middle of Finance blueprint validation session. It was the closing session after Logistics and Sales blueprint in the previous days. Something went wrong. The session was not run as his expectation. Enough to make all of us feeling so bad in front of business owners and managers.

*

'You were forbidden to enter Malaysia until settle the proper document', the custom officer in KLIA said. I was still trying to explain my position, showing him the letter from my company which stating that my Employment Pass was being processed. Actually the letter did not have legitimation at all. I was overstay and my employment pass had not been done. That was early of Feb 2005 on my way return home for Chinese New Year after 2 months in Petaling Jaya. Because of this my first overseas job was suspended.

*

Sleepless nights in the warehouse...

'Don't you feel boring?' one day my client asked. Always repeating the same cycle in every project. Again and again for almost eight years.

The number speaks. Eight years could not be passed by just long displeasure stuffs list. Remind me to one analogy. Flip over the messy look backside of cross-stich canvas, and we will see something lovely.