San Francisco & Vegas trip 2005

California is such a beautiful state with a mild mediterranean weather. It's also one of the richest state in US. Nevada on the other hand is pretty much a desert state. But out of nowhere, there is a sin city called las vegas. A truly happening place with lots of wonderful landmarks. Our journey started from Los Angeles and as we were trying to be American for a while, we rented an american car called Dodge ;).

Beverly Hills.....

Alcatraz

San Francisco Bridge

Downtown SF

Las Vegas Boulevard

Caesars Palace

Hoover Dam

The Dam

Going back to LA!

Well, the journey from LA to SF took around 8 hours and LA to Vegas around 4 hours drive. The scenery to SF is not that bad as compared to Vegas. I love driving around while travelling as you got to know more about the places. It's not just visiting the city, I love the experiences observing local people a little bit, the culture and many more. Will share more in this blog on my other trips around the world :).

SAP Contractor (MDV)

Another contract job for me. This time, the client is Malaysia Debt Ventures Berhad (MDV - http://www.mdv.com.my). MDV is financier for emerging technologies companies in ICT & Biotechnology sector. The office is located at Bank Pembangunan, along Jalan Sultan Ismail.

My assignment is more or less the same as before, the automation of loan management approval process via SAP Workflow. I noticed the SAP Banking module is getting more popular these days. When I was in Australia last 3 weeks, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (the largest bank in Australia based on market capitalization) has just completed the implementation of SAP banking replacing the legacy system. It’s a bold move by the Bank itself as not many banks are bold enough to replace their stable system already in place. The cost of the project is gigantic AUS1 Billion and the partner is Accenture. The project is deemed as a success and now it would pave the way for other banks in the world to implement the same. In general, most banks are relying on mainframe architecture to support their core banking processes. The problem with this, it’s not a real time solution. The cost of adding new feature is huge and from maintenance perspective, it’s not feasible. But they wouldn’t upgrade to real time business software such as SAP as it would take massive efforts to do so especially dealing with people money. If they would do so, the rate of error must be 0% and this is the risk that many banks wouldn’t take the chance. So, it’s enlightening to see some would take this risk.

Back to my job assignment, I wouldn’t say MDV takes this huge risk as they are not consumer banking first of all. As a financier specifically to two industries, their customers based are manageable and thus implementing the SAP solution is not deemed as huge risk-taking. I’m just happy I have this opportunity to assist them in implementing the SAP solution.