Siri lawatan 1992 - 1999

TRIP TO GENEVA OCT 1999

I was selected by my company, PERNEC to attend Telecom 99 exhibition in Geneva. This was one of the fourth event that I represent the company. Others are Guinea/Sweden, Nepal and Sudan business visit. The Telecom 99 event was organised by ITU, an International body who responsible for Global Telecommunication standard. It was the biggest Telecom event in the world and held every 4 year.

It was great to visit Geneva and Switzerland in general. It was a dream come true. I really wanted to see one of the attraction in Geneva, the flower clock. I saw the photo of this clock when I was a kid. Since then, I dreamt to come to Geneva.

The flower clock remind the flower mickey mouse in Disneyland Japan. Below is the photo.

We rented a resident house in Geneva city for the whole week. The house owner purposely went for holiday and rented their house during large exibition. All hotels were fully booked. 

Telecom 99 exhibition was really HUGE. The exhibitors constructed large multi level booths. There were three storey booth. Each large booth easily took 15m x 15m floor space, bigger than a double storey house. These companies really spent money. It could be more than RM1 million. At that time, telecommunication was profitable business. I felt dwarf. I've to walk looking up to the booth surrounded by tall Mat Saleh. 

I did have a mission in visiting the event.  I was studying new technology trend and identifying new strategic potential technology partners for PERNEC. At the time, NEC was losing market share due to strong competition from Europe and American companies. There were emergence of new players. Some of them were just small companies.

 I discovered the new trend in Telecommunication. The technology was converging from every angle. The most obvisous convergence was voice and data technology. At that time, transmission and switching already converged which benefit Transmission group. The trend would also continue with the convergence of Telecommunication and broadcasting. After 10 year (2009), this prediction was true!!!

It was time for company to make change. . Upon ny return, I submited a proposal recommending for company to make strategic change.I recommend new techonlogies and potential strategic partners.  One of the pontential partner was Huawei. In 1999,, Huawei was unknown and did not have any business in Malaysia. I was close to Huawei Business Development Manager. He was based in Malaysia for 2 years  to study local market and develop business strategy. I introduced Huawei to PERNEC before I left the company in 2000. Huawei was struggling to penetrate Malaysian market at time. Nevertheles, they were agressive and never gave up. Now, Huawei is a big name not only in Malaysia but globally.

After my return, I organised a technology workshop for Transmission division. I guessed it was eye opener. Later, my proposed business plan was adopted as the write up for Budget 2000.  I felt good that the ransmission Division did make big changes in adopting new technology. I was happy that the Division were successful and become the flag-bearer of PERNEC until now.  

Before my departure from Geneva, I did sight seeing. Many International body have headquarter here. One of the notable global organisation was United Nation.

Moving around city, I saw UN building and  other  International Association. At one area, there was this big chair with three legs. I had no idea about this image.

I also didn't miss to visit the Geneva lake. Here, the flower clock was located. In the middle of the lake, there was the famous fountain. 

Another interesing attraction was the 4 seasons Park. Here, there were 4 big glass buildings which housed plants from different countries including tropical and desert trees. We can see tropical tree even during winter as the building keep the relevant climate temperature.

I took bus and tramp around the city using one ticket. The city was not big and less crowded. I guessed many of the people were actually visitors to the event.

I did enjoy the trip. I thought this was the only chance in my life to visit Switzerland.  I never thought I would join a Swiss company later and visited the countries almost annually since 2003.