By SEOW MEI LING

Most people think of entrepreneurship as starting companies with
the focus on the economic value generated.  Hatim Tyabji,
Chairman of DataCard Corporation also Founder and Former CEO of
VeriFone Inc, believes that if that's the only focus then the
entrepreneur is short-changing himself or herself.

If one is going to be an entrepreneur and one is going to start
something or grow an enterprise, one has to ask oneself this
fundamental question: are we committed to doing our work with
unadulterated excellence, no matter how arduous the task or how
long the road?  There is no "quick hit".  Building companies is
one brick at a time - it's hard work!  Another question a
successful entrepreneur normally asks himself or herself is, is
our work likely to make a contribution that we can be proud of?
Does our work provide us with a sense of purpose and meaning
that goes beyond just making money?  According to Hatim, who was
speaking on "Effective Organizational Leadership and
Entrepreneurship for Global Organizations" in MIM, making money
is and should be an "Oh! By the way…."

One of the companies Hatim started in 1986 was in the electronic
payment industry.  At the time the business did not exist.
There was no electronic backbone to the operations of credit
cards then.  So, in making a retail transaction, the shopkeeper
had no way of knowing whether the card was fraudulent or whether
one had stolen the card or the card belonged to another person.
All of the things that one completely takes for granted today,
there was no way of doing it back then.  And these cards were
used regionally - US card was used in the US and Asian cards
were used in certain countries in Asia and in Europe.

Back then, albeit a small company of three, Hatim and his team
had this dream of creating a seamless global payment system.
However, they had to contend with a large competitor like the
General Telephone & Electronics (GT&E).  GT&E had commissioned a
study worldwide to look at payment globally and to try and
prognosticate on how many point-of-sales (POS) devices could be
sold on a global basis.  It was reported to GT&E that the global
markets for POS devices were 30,000 units.  So, GT&E said that
Europe being the market wasn't big enough and that 30,000 units
didn't make any sense and so they exited.

As a small start-up company, Hatim's company did not have the
financial means, as did GT&E to carry out market research.
Hatim also felt that defining the market as POS was too narrow;
this was after GT&E exited the Europe market.  So, they started
to create a new industry and today, it is called the
"transaction automation".  Hatim's company went public in 1990.
He ran it privately for four years and publicly for eight.
Then, Hewlett Packard (HP) came along and did a transaction with
them, which was their turning point.  This deal resulted in nine
million units installed worldwide.

Just before Hatim's company went public, he made this comment
when he was addressing all of the people of the company that had
grown from three persons to about 1,000 people in 1990.  The
people were nervous.  The company had launched the transaction
automation industry but they had no way of knowing at that point
that it was going to be successful.  Hatim said, "If you
believe, you could change the perceptions of those around you.
You can in fact change the business methods of your customers.
You can change the behaviour of your competitors.  You can, in
fact, completely shape the structure of your industry.  To do
that requires a level of intensity, tremendous level of caring
and passion."

In VeriFone Inc, Hatim took the time to step back and very
thoughtfully pen down the basic values.  And that resulted in an
eight-page booklet - the corporate culture - that later became
more than eight pages as the content was translated into 15
other languages.  Hatim argued that one cannot be a global
enterprise unless and until one not only think globally but also
act globally.  In addition, one should not be intimidated by the
differences that exist in this world but instead embrace those
differences.

He related a story about how VeriFone Inc had been trying to
unseat a competitor for some time and was able to win a deal by
living this philosophy.  This incident happened in South Africa
involving the country's major financial institution.  Hatim was
able to meet the Chairman of the bank.  He walked into the
office and handed the Chairman the VeriFone Philosophy document.
Out of the eight languages, the document was written in
Afrikaner.  The Chairman almost could not believe it and said he
had never heard of a global enterprise that was thoughtful
enough to have something handed to him in English and also in
his own language.  The meeting was about half an hour to 45
minutes and nothing was said about VeriFone.  A lot was said
about ethics and global leadership.  Hatim related what he felt
when he walked out the office - he was 100 per cent certain that
they would get the orders, and they succeeded, in that case and
in many others.

The moral of that story is that when one has a document like the
VeriFone Philosophy document, translated into different
languages, one actually believes in it.  Hatim commented that it
is very difficult to get people to follow one's lead.  One has
got to continually communicate and make sure that people
understand that one is serious by living what one believes, i.e.
"walk the talk."

Even after having the VeriFone Philosophy document out, it took
Hatim a year and a half before he genuinely felt that his people
believed in it.  He said, "Human beings are human beings.  Their
first tendency is just to ignore it, and assume that it will go
away and that you're not serious about it - they think it's just
a marketing document that really doesn't have any meaning or any
substance to it.  At one point in time, I got extremely
frustrated because I couldn't get anyone to listen to me.  But
that doesn't stop me from trying."

During one of his most frustrating time, which happened to be in
Taiwan, he said to his employees, "Life is not a spectator
sports.  As a VeriFoner, you are expected to live your life,
your professional life, according to the precepts of the
VeriFone philosophy.  If you disagree with these precepts, you
have an obligation to speak up.  If you observe actions that
conflict with them, you have an obligation to take corrective
action of your own.  Standing on the sideline and complaining is
patently unacceptable."

He ended by saying, "I'm counting on each of you to continually
be an instrument of positive change.  And in engendering change,
it takes hard work and tremendous amount of effort.  And in
engendering change you've got to conquer fear.  Because the
minute you propose something that is radically different from
what exists in the status quo, you run the risk of failure.  You
run the risk that you're wrong.  So, you've got to have the
courage to be able to face up to it when you're wrong, to say,
'Yes, I was wrong.  Now, let's get on with it.'"

One of the things that Hatim always believed in is that business
is generally referred to as business, the softer discipline.  He
feels that people are touchy feely, believing business is hard
and harsh.  Hatim does not believe that business has to be hard
or harsh.  He believes that people have to operate on a certain
set of basic values, ethics and integrity that should never be
compromised.  But if one does that, one has to be able to
communicate that to one's people continually and effectively.


Hatim Tyabji is Chairman of DataCard Group, a global provider of
secure ID and card personalization solutions.  He was at MIM on
1 July 2004 and spoke on "Effective Organizational Leadership &
Entrepreneurship for Global Organizations." For more
information, please call MIM Customer Service at 03-2165 4611,
e-mail enquiries@mim.edu or visit our website www.mim.edu.