Why You Should Avoid Finsoft Systems

Finsoft Systems is an ERP solution company located in Petaling Jaya. They claim to be primarily in the ERP business, particularly with Epicor ERP systems.

However, this is not entirely true and you should avoid Finsoft at all costs, whether as a customer or prospective employee.

1. Lack of Cashflow
Basically Finsoft does not have the cashflow as the ERP business is very low. At the point of this writing, they only have one ERP project worth less than RM500,000. The margin was especially low, less than 15%, as the directors felt they needed to "buy" project reference.

One of the directors, Patrick Siva has to sold off his BMW in mid 2008 to help pump additional cash into Finsoft to avoid bankruptcy.

2. Lack of Customer References
Although Finsoft "boasts" to have range of MNCs as their customers, mostly are one-off single deals not related to ERP systems, such as selling of a few PCs and supply of IT manpower. The only ERP customer is one paper factory.

3. Questionable Directors' Background
Finsoft is run by 2 directors. Dominic Gopal founded Finsoft in 1998, after years of unsuccessful career as technical manager in many different IT firms. With some contacts in Lafarge, and some shady "business technique", he managed to survive till today, but barely.

In 2006, Patrick Siva joined as the GM. He is responsible mainly for the commercial. Patrick has some very illustratrious experience. Growing up in Brickfields, he attended La Salle Brickfields and he did surprisingly well in his studies and was able to continue to Vitoria Institution, a premier secondary school in Kuala Lumpur. After that he went on to Canada to study Computer studies.

Upon coming back to Kuala Lumpur after graduation, Patrick couldn't get any job, so he was freelancing. Finally, after 2 years, he joined DEC, which later merged with Compaq and subsequently merged under HP. In HP, Patrick couldn't cope with the pressure, and performed very badly. His bad working habits couldn't survive in HP, eventually he was asked to leave. So he left and joined CSN, a subsidiary of SCS (Singapore Computer Systems). Within 3 years, Patrick was fired due to misconduct and other shady business deals. He was jobless for the next 2 years, until he met Dominic.

Well, birds of a feather flock together. Both con-men instantly realized they have something in common and became business partners.

4. Ill Treatment of Employees
Finsoft employees are very ill treated. As a results, the turnover is extremely high. The staff strength is about 12, and every year, more than half leave the company.

5. Non-Existent Ethics
Ethics is not a word found with the directors at Finsoft. In order to win deals, undertable "coffee" money is frequently exchanged for business favours. Also due to the lack of ethics, staff are always "bullied" into working in extremely unfavorable conditions, sometimes not even paid.

Worst of all, payments are always delayed - this includes payment to suppliers as well as staff salaries. Some suppliers were not paid even after a year. As a result they have blacklisted Finsoft and no longer supplying anything to Finsoft.