A reader has forwarded this piece of LinkedIn information of a
person, by the name of Jonathan Tan, to The Real Singapore.
LinkedIn is a social networking website for job seekers and
business professionals. It is used by people for professional
networking and fostering business relationships. The information is
open to public:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jonathan-tan/23/3a4…
According to the information, Jonathan Tan is currently the
Director, ASEAN & Pakistan at Palo Alto
Networks, presumably, looking after sales.
From the summary of his CV, he described himself as a
professional with over 20 years of sales experience and a deal
maker. He wrote that he has track record in sales, cutting deals
that exceeded multi-million dollars:
Jonathan Tan’s Summary
1 An accomplished, results-oriented sales professional with over
20 years of sales experience in managing top-tier direct customers
and channels in diversified industry segments with experience
across APAC.
2 Ability to influence, motivate and lead people – prospects,
customers, vendors, partners – through effective communication and
personal interaction skills.
3 A deal maker in dynamic market. Proven ability to build
account relationships at different levels, from C-level executives
to achieve sales objectives.
4 Track record exceeding multi-million dollar deals.
5 Proven expertise in enterprise selling, negotiation and
creative problem solving skills. Active involvement in all stages
of account management, including engagement strategy, early-stage
engagement, and deal structuring and final negotiation.
6 Equally resourceful in getting the right resource to
accomplish sales objectives with a good understanding complicated
corporate processes in large, complex Multi-national companies.
In the last 20 years, he had worked in a number of companies but
of particular interest is his job in NCS as
Deputy Director, Enterprise Software group from Oct 2001 to Mar
2004 (about 2.5 years).
Further enquiry into LinkedIn showed that Mr Tan listed one of
his key achievements while doing sales in NCS
as:
Key Achievement:
- S$30 million deal with Singapore Town Council. Software license
at S$5 million.
He also said to be leading a team of 6 doing sales:
In the media statement [Link] appeared on 2 Jan 2013 on the
PAP website, it said that the Town Councils
entered into an agreement with NCS to develop
the computer system in Aug 2003:
In 2003, the TCs wanted to harmonise their computer systems.
Hence, in 2003, all the TCs jointly called an open tender for a
vendor to provide a computer system based on a common platform.
NCS was chosen to provide this system. The
term of the NCS contract (“NCS contract”) was
from 1 August 2003 to 31 October 2010. There was an option to
further extend the contract for one year, until 31 October
2011.
Which means, the contract must have been negotiated between
NCS and PAP TCs in
2003, some time before Aug. This falls into the time when Mr Tan
was the Deputy Director of Enterprise Software group in
NCS (Oct 2001 to Mar 2004). And since Mr Tan
also listed the deal with TCs as one of his key achievements in
NCS, we can guess that the computer system
developed by NCS for the 14 PAP TCs cost $30 million (including hardware, vendor
software and the developed software), as noted by Mr Tan in his
achievements.
Mr Tan also listed “software licence at $5 million”. It’s not
known if he meant the software provided by other vendors or the
integrated software developed by NCS or both.
Whatever it is, it would not be too far out to say that the
software developed by NCS for the TCs should
cost millions of dollars. And presumably, these millions of dollars
must have come from the conservancy charges paid for by the
HDB residents.
