Can Schuster Survive This Season Campaign

The new season of La Liga will commence next week and the mighty Real Madrid has begun its campaign with a long waited silverware to be added in their already packed show room. It is totally un’real how the reigning champion can edge through a team like Valencia with nine men for almost half of the game. The simple answer is determination and pure discipline which the German coach has always wanted his team to be.

The biggest news of all during the summer break has always connected with Real Madrid. The Ronaldo-saga was been the main highlights beside the awake of the Spanish national team that won the European Championship. Until to date, Ronaldo still at Manchester, Van Der Vaart is the only high profile couped and the love affairs between Robinho and Chelsea. Should Robinho go, Van Der Vaart is surely be in the starting eleven and Schuster biggest prays is the return of Wesley Sneijder from his pre-season injury.

The acquisition of Van der Vaart is crucial in strengthening the club’s attacking quartet which full of promise and dangerous individuals. But the purchase of the former Ajax man has indicated that currently Real has the best battalion of left footers at their disposals. Heinze, Marcelo, Miguel Torres, Guti, Drenthe, Raul, Sneijder, Van der Vaart and Robben should indicate that the left side of the team is very very strong. What about the balance of the team? Who will provide covers on the right?

No matter how the squad will look like, the exciting part is can they be a real challenger for the champions league and six years now is seem to be a long period for madridstas to feel the glory of europe. The burden will definitely be on Schuster’s shoulder as he is really in virtue to bring the champions league back to Madrid. If he fail the mission, he has 90% chances to be shown the door by the ambitious Calderon. The league now is not the priority anymore and no wonder how bad the President has insists to bring Cristiano Ronaldo to the Barnebeu. But one has to remember, Calderon is not Florentino Perez.

Perez is always got what he wants. History told us how he developed the Galacticos within 4 years of his power. The club has everything in Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham but has nothing in silverware. The stakes of these stars’ egos are high and coaches came and out like a roller-coster. Coaches do not have power in selecting their players. The president is in total control and as a result, a recipe for disaster. Thropyless in three years in a row is a hard thing to swallow for the hard core Madridstas.

When Fabio Capello came along with his disciplinary authority, the club looks like to go back to square one as more and more moderate and young signings were made instead of big names players. Young players like Marcelo, Gonzalo Higuain and Fernando Gago are all the long term potentials who taste the sweet victory of 2006 – 2007 La Liga. The reigning period of the 'defensive' Don Capello is not long, a season and a league championship can’t secured him his job. In coming the Madrid blue eye boy during the 80’s, Bernd Schuster.

I have no doubt about his calibre as a footballer. He is like a midfiled wizard when he spearheaded the West Germany team during the European Championship in 1980. He is also a traitor like Figo and even worse when he plays for all the best clubs in La Liga in the 80s and early 90s. He played for Madrid, then Barcelona along with Diego Maradona and finally with Athletico Madrid. He proved he is one of the top coach at present where he brought Real to be a champion in La Liga last season.

The deciding factor for his success last season is the declining of its great rival, Barcelona with internal problems and indiscipline players. Poor Frank Rijkaard paid the price for it. This season Barcelona will be presents by some fresh faces to replace the antics of Ronaldinho, Deco, Zambrotta etc. while in Madrid, Schuster has to put his faith on his existing team plus the creativity of Van der Vaart to steer the team for another glorious season.

What really matters now for Mr. Calderon now, the pressure is on Schuster. No champions league, no more Schuster for next season. That is a very simple conclusion when you are the head coach for Real Madrid.

Part-time CFOs: A concept of outsourcing

Companies without a CFO are at a competitive disadvantage. A CFO is a proactive professional who has a persistent knowledge of things important for your business to run properly. Many SMEs have sofisticated operations and complex cost and financial challenges. You might not realise it but a CFO for your small business might not be impossible. All successful businesses have one thing in common; timely, accurate and useful information

How do you know that your business required a CFO? Consider the followings:

1. Are your Financial Statements is error-free?
2. Do you receive your Financial Statements by the 10th of the month?
3. Are you confident that the host of things needed to help your company succeed is aligned with your business strategy and its implementation?

If you are unsure of the answer to the questions, you are definitely needs the assistance of a Chief Financial Officer.

Worth Considering
Outsorcing this function is an alternative to hire another full-time employee along with the employment costs such as payroll, EPF and benefits not mentioning the cost incurred in search for a qualified person. The benefits of outsourcing an employee at this point will far exceed the cost.

Advantages for outsourcing CFOs

More time to spend with customers

Generally, entrepreneurs don’t enjoy spending time with accounting and its other related functions. Competitive companies must spend 110% of their time with current and future customers. If it is not you, then its your competitors.

Better financial information for key decision making

Entrepreneurs can’t make key business decisions while relying on inaccurate and incomplete data. How confident are you that your account personnel understand the approved accounting standards and can present profitability information to help you make the right choices?

More money from the bank and from vendors

Bankers and vendors are looking for Financial Statements that look professional that follow approved accounting standards and principles and highlight the company’s key ratios. This can improve your business external ‘image’ and assist in opening doors to banks and better vendor terms.

Better trained accounting staff

The turnover of accounting staff normally is high. A part-time CFO will mentor and train your accounting staff to do a better job by acquiring more knowledge of accounting procedures and hopefully will reduce the turnover.

Better documentation and controls

A part-time CFO will establish proper controls and best practices and help mitigate high risk and low value tasks to protect your business.

No surprises on tax payments

A part-time CFO will work directly with your regular tax agent to give better financial information.

The advantages to outsource the CFO services
a. Accurate and timely in-house financial statements;
b. The origination of solutions to your company’s problems;
c. A sounding board for the owner’s key decisions, and
d. You will begin to spend more time on entrepreneurial activities.

“Companies without CFOs gain significant competitive advantage and improve profitability by outsourcing a CFO on an as-needed basis.”

Visit www.inovastra.com and find out how we can assist your company's financial management and save your annual overhead, RM20,000 to RM50,000 through our expertise.

...take five and smile ......

I just got it from one of the blogs. Let us thnink the rationale of it. Happy reading.

Finally, a definition of globalization I can understand and relate to.

Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization? Answer: Princess Diana’s death.

Question: How come?

Answer: An English princess, with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel,
driving a German car, with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change the spelling) followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles; treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines.

You think this is done? Lets finish it.

This is sent to you by an Englishman, using Bill Gates’s technology, and you’re probably reading this on your computer, that use Taiwanese chips, and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexican illegals…..

And that, my friends, is Globalization

Still using the old business model ? ....falling profits face you!

A thought of strategic management….

The current environment of rapidly evolving customer needs and the ever growing new technologies causes many products, services and the ways of producing it have become outdated and obsolete. When such circumstances happens, entrepreneurs are facing the common difficult choice; destroy what they have or acquire nimble competitors and hope to adjust. How good it would be to create more opportunities for the most volatile and challenging situation.

The last decade showed that an additional organisational model was developed to suit for operating purposes taken into consideration the most volatile irresistible forces; establishing a business with little capital and very flexible in providing goods and services. History shows Amazon, the internet retailer in late 1990s involved the rapid growth is a good example.

It grew from zero to major factor in the retail book marketplace as its started to operate the business at the minimum cost. Subsequent to the success, the Company have an equity market capitalization that was larger than the other retail book publishing and retailing industry combined.

The company has huge success in book retailing for quite a time because it did not have to build a retail stores and carry less inventory than a store-based chain required. This was supported mainly by equity investors who more keen in long term growth instead of short term profits.

From the perception of manufacturing sector, making products to order is another option which also provides great capital management advantages i.e., the company making product may only order the components it needs after actually receiving the order for the product and having been paid by customer. The other scenario, the producer may have negative working capital rather than normal 60-90 days of receivables and inventory. The key advantage is the company does not have to worry much about having a lot of obsolete product should the irresistible forces shift against it.

Entrepreneurs have to be sure that its products or services tracking the evolving customer preferences. With current global economic environment, entrepreneurs definitely have to improve their business model and be more flexible for adapting to future shifts in trends.

The fall of Italian 'captain marvel'

As almost a week to go before the great show this summer, the Italian football camp has been struck with the most fear news that they might want to permanently ignore it. It’s a tragedy for team captain, Fabio Cannavaro, the 2006 World Player of the Year after he had won the second La Liga with Real Madrid. With the omission of Cannavaro, the Azzuri has to rely on the likes of Materazzi, Gamberini, Barzagli, Chellini or even the classic Christian Panucci to protect Gigi Buffon. So what else Roberto Donadoni has in his mind, of course he hopes none of the remaining defenders will get injured.

Let refresh your mind when Italy was knock-out by South Korea during the 2002 World Cup. Most of the fans blamed the Colombian referee as the culprit but the Italian coach at that time, Marcelo Lippi was simply concluded that they were without Cannavaro and Nesta that night. With the reputation such as Lippi recognised how important Cannavaro to Italy, I had no doubt that Donadoni should really has the early scare about Italy chances but in this kind of tournament, luck always play the role. I’m hoping that Gamberini or Barzagli will take this advantage to impress some attending scouts from top clubs.


So if you are in the Donadoni’s shoe, what are you going to do without the other half of the Italian’s Great Wall? Italian under Donadoni plays a totally ‘non-italian’ with 4-3-3 formation. The absence of Cannavaro will make the Italian defence looks vulnerable and they are playing with three midfielders. Some might said Italy should switch back to the ‘italian way’ of classic 4-4-2 with two holdings and two wide men. Remember Arrigo Sacchi approach of one tall and one small for attackers plus a ‘magician’ during World Cup 1994? To put in the current situation, Luca Toni and Di Natale fits the bill but this time who will to produce the magic. Andrea Pirlo only rise his game when orchestrating from the deeper position. The other options is to adopt 4-2-3-1 with Luca Toni be the target man. This will allows Gattuso and De Rossi covers the back four.


An interesting point of note that Donadoni should take into consideration is whether ‘bad boy’ Marco Materazzi should be in the first 11. He spent more hours in the bench at Inter this season due to good performance by Christian Chivu and Ivan Cordoba partnership. It seems almost he will get the nod to be in starting 11 because of big tournament experience? Whether he plays or not, still I can’t wait to see how the Italians will play without Cannavaro. So the first 11 almost predictable with Buffon on goal, Panucci and Zambrotta will do their best job as overlapping fullbacks. The centre backs goes to Materazzi and Barzagli. Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso and De Rossi will engineer the midfield. To complete the jigsaw, Luca Toni, De Natale and big tournament flop, Alessandro Del Piero will spearhead the attack.


Its good to see how Donadoni’s 4-3-3 will perform in the group of death. The last I hope that messrs. Del Piero, Pirlo, Buffon will outperform the classic Dutch 4-3-3 without Nesta, Totti and Cannavaro. Wait and see.

The begin of new era...

Finally I've got the opportunity to express myself globally and the knowledge might be limited but above all the basic rule of life is about sharing. Life is short and it is true. Lets us take a minute to refresh our memory on our contributions to Allah the mighty God. I always remind myself that I may not be able to see the sun the next morning. I have to live with that attitude so I can always perform and serve the very best on my duties and responsibilities to Allah, my parents, my loving wife, my wonderful son, my families, my work, my employeer, colleagues and other creatures surrounding me. Only that will slowly teach you to be bersyukur (thankful) to what you have.

Before you get tired of this, I better make it simple and short. Ensure your foundations is strong to built a house. Yes, I mean the 5 pillars of Islam. Don't make your wonderful Quran as an exhibition item in your living room. Treat it as your good reference material instead of wasting your money to bookstores for self-confidence books. Let me share something very interesting. When I moved to my current house, I found that there are so many ants in or outside the house. Alhamdulillah I didn't lost my thought and go to supermarket to buy an insect sprayers. I go back to basic and guess what I found? Surah An-Naml in the holy Quran. The surah is about ants. Fantastic is it? and now I thank the mighty God that my living premises is 'ants free'. I called it strategy, my friend.

Currrently I'm doing something which I never thought of doing it. After 10 good years I had associated with local and international accounting practices, I'm now more obsess in doing the business strategic planning and organisational development. Considering that I felt very lucky to get such a great mentor to guide me on the long winding road. I'm very confident and comfortable with the lines from the powerful Jedi Master, ....'always have the two of them, a Master and a Padawan (apprentice)'. What we are doing is very interesting indeed. Just imagine that how magnificent Allah, the Mighty God created us. Everybody were gifted with a brain for them to explore their own strength. Its only up to the humans themselves to measure where do they stand.

So the new era has begins, My family and I will start a new lease of life after being away for 5 years in the foreign land. It will be a tougher challenge due to current global economic uncertainties. The message is clear and simple, lead your life wisely and the choice you make today dictates the life you lead.

Jangan ever lupa your tikor sembahyang.