FingerTec Newsletter

FingerTec SA Building Good Reputation for FingerTec® Through Excellent After Sales Service

Fingertec SA was established in 2006 for the sole purpose of distributing and supporting biometric products throughout Southern Africa. Ms Monica Meimaris, has taken time to.


	What made you decide to go into biometrics business?
	The high fraud rate in alternative time keeping methods and the level of crime rate in South Africa made us saw potential in bringing in biometric products to help reduce costs to companies and restrict access to only authorized people.

	What made you choose FingerTec amongst other brands in the market?
	We brought in and tested various makes of readers from several manufacturers worldwide, but none were as strong, well supported, as user friendly & as well marketed as the Fingertec readers. Only the Fingertec readers came with full manuals for hardware and software installations, VCD guides and were packaged in attractive, easily identifiable and easy to carry boxes. The TCMS V2 software was the closest software to be able to cater for the time and attendance requirements in the country. We also saw the potential of creating the “Fingertec” brand in South Africa.

	What were the marketing activities that Fingertec SA have done for FingerTec and which one yielded the best results in terms of enquiries and sales?
	We have attended Securex – the largest security expo in Africa. We have also taken part in various VIP payroll (one of the leading payroll brands in South Africa) seminars and training sessions throughout the country which lead to them making us business partners, meaning that they will refer all queries and requests relating to time and attendance requirements to us. By far, the marketing yielding the best results in terms of enquiries and sales are our adverts placed bi-monthly in the Industrial Equipment Buyer Magazine as well as in the Mining Equipment Buyer Magazine.

How many resellers you have in South Africa right now and from which industry are they?

At the moment, we have 17 authorised resellers throughout the country. These resellers come from various industries such as security, CCTV and access control, office automation and labour and HR brokers.

How do you do reseller selection?

Before we approve resellers, we request several information from them such as company profiles and details of existing products and services supplied. We then do background and credit checks on the companies. If we are happy with all the above, we go meet the resellers, conduct full training and request that they sign a reseller agreement.

Which products are bestsellers in South Africa and do you foresee the change in trend in near future?

We have two very good sellers in the country. The number one seller is the TA100. We have found a mini UPS which we connect to the reader so that it becomes mobile. We can therefore sell the reader as a mobile unit; this allows us to get into customers that have workers working on small sites all over the country. The R2 is also quickly becoming a top seller because of its unique attractive look and its capabilities.

Fingertec SA has done numerous installations of FingerTec and which ones are the prominent clients of yours in South Africa?

We have installed Fingertec readers for various clients and customers throughout the country. The most known of these clients are places like DHL, Limpopo Tobacco- one of our largest tobacco producers, Primolitos – a liquid and powdered food manufacturer that supplies the National army, jails and one of the largest wholesale stores in the country, all the Hirsch’s Appliance stores throughout South Africa, Tekkie Town – the fastest growing distributor of sports footwear in the country. We’ve also supplied engineering firms appointed to help solve the electricity shortage in our country. There are also many not so well known but equally important customers of Fingertec throughout South Africa.

From your experience, what do you think is required from your market for door access and time attendance products?

FingerTec® AC900

One thing that we have found to be in very high demand is an access control reader that doesn’t have a screen or buttons, all it must have is the sensor and must connect via TCPIP and have an option for card as well. We feel very confident that if Fingertec Worldwide could provide us with such a reader, we would be able to increase our sales and offer products to suit all needs.

What do you like about FingerTec Worldwide?

We find Fingertec Worldwide to be very professional and helpful. Even though there is a big time difference between Fingertec Worldwide, and us we are always offered help and support promptly and efficiently. All queries are always attended to. All in all we are extremely happy with the products and services received from Fingertec Worldwide.

What are the major obstacles for you in selling biometrics in the your region?

The major obstacles that we face are on the software side of biometrics. Our market is very specific and we have had a lot of difficulty selling when our software doesn’t support the following features: Overtime worked out weekly and monthly instead of daily ie. 99% of companies in South Africa don’t pay overtime unless the staff have worked a total of 45hrs in a week. Another problem we are experiencing is the software not allocating hours for public holidays, even though the staff don’t go to work, the software should allocate normal hours for the day if it falls within the working schedule of the employees as they are paid for public holidays. Finally, the last problem we have is that one flexi shift is not enough. It would be great if we could have more than one flexi shift.

Who are your biggest competitors in South Africa and what’s your strategy to beat them?

The biggest competitor in South Africa for us is ZK Software as they are supplying readers with software at much lower prices than we can, they are also apparently opening a branch in South Africa where they will be selling directly to anyone. There are also the larger and more expensive brands such as Sagem, Siemens, Limetec, etc. Our strategy to beat the competition is to offer the best after sales service and support. We have developed a good reputation for doing this.

What is your future plan for FingerTec?

In the future, we would like to get a Fingertec reader into retail. We need to find something that is quite a bit cheaper than the TA100 that we can sell in bulk to the leading Electrical equipment wholesalers in the country. We were looking at getting the Ofis into retail but it is still too expensive. We are very excited to find out more about Timeline because we are hoping that this is the unit that we can get into retail. We are also losing out on a lot of access control installations because we don’t have a cheap reader that we can sell with only access control software, we are hoping that we will find something in the Fingertec OEM range. We are also looking at several leading magazines to increase our marketing. We have already created and established the Fingertec brand in the country and we now want to use our good reputation to get into companies throughout the country.

From right: Tomas Sardinha(Financial Director), Monica Meimaris(Operations Director), Toli Meimaris(Technical Director)