Vienna’s position as CEE’s ICT capital has suffered quite a blow by IBM’s announcement to move its CEE headquarters to Prague. Beware: I love Prague, I live there, but the decision’s wording “to move growth market activities to growth markets” sounds rather shallow if applied to the Czech Republic. Sure the country has growth potentials that the EU15 have lost long ago, but then why not move IBM CEE to Ukraine or Russia right away?
Tag Archive for 'czech market'
This week I will be away for business in Prague, representing a social networking company preparing to launch a social networking site in the Czech Republic. I would be pleased to meet with any nowEurope readers while in Prague. (Write me at: steve [at] noweurope [dot] com)
While Budapest and Prague might seem like neighbors on the map, I will travel all night by train to get there. However, one difference on this trip is that I will be able to sleep. From January 1, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia are part of the Schengen system. That means no more midnight knocks to check my passport.
I will share my observations about the Czech online market upon my return to Budapest later this week.
The very beginnings of the IDS Scheer mark stretch back to 1984, when Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer with his colleagues from Saarland University founded a small consulting company focused on process engineering. Today it is an international company with shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and a significant global partner of SAP serving circa 4,000 customers in more than 50 countries around the world.
The Czech branch office has been on the local market since 1994 (originally in partnership with COMSOFT); the complete ownership integration into the parent company was carried out in 2003. IDS Scheer ČR, s.r.o. has the ISO certification for strategic consulting for business processes and support information system solution. A significant part of the product portfolio is represented also by consulting services of SAP system, the leading system of its category on the Czech market, using the company’s own ARIS Value Engineering methodology.
Continue reading ‘IDS Scheer CR: 5 years of experience with EU projects’
Innovative companies are often established as spin offs from the research organisations like universities or institutes. The Prague company T-SOFT is in this respect a typical case, however, quite unique within Czech conditions. This is bringing a story based on my interview with Jaroslav Pejcoch, T-SOFT co-founder and director, reporting on how it successfully managed its first EU trial.
Jaroslav Pejcoch worked as the IT director in the Tesla VUST division, which was involved in computer graphics and design system automation. This division previously used to design systems being under embargo, e.g. in the area of design and simulation of integrated circuits. At the beginning of the 90s the state orders finished and the institute was in threat of redundancy. Therefore, together with other colleagues he decided to start a new private company focused on advanced technology - (geo)graphical information systems and risk management systems. In 1991 they gained the first big orders from Unisys, CSA, Cesky Telecom, army and the Ministry of Finance.
Presently T-SOFT is one of the leading companies on the Czech market in the area of crisis management. Crisis management requires mission critical information systems, where any failure can jeopardize the infrastructure existence itself or to impair public safety. This involves areas such as banking, environment and rescue and military bodies of the state. The key features of the IS then must be security, robustness and reliable data back-up emphasis.
Besides development of these systems T-SOFT focuses also on system integration and according to the words of the director, Mr. Pejcoch, it has a competitive advantage in the fact, that it can offer client help with funding, as their source of finance often come from EU funds.
The MEDSI Project
The MEDSI project represented the very first experience of the company with the EU projects. It is a strategic research project (STREP) from the 2nd IST call of the 6th EU Framework Programme submitted in the Improving Risk Management area. The project budget is 4.6 mil. EUR (EU contribution is less than a half) for 18 months and 11 partners from 7 countries (e.g. companies operating in the GIS area, one of them is the Romanian Intergraph, two German companies, further organisations from Portugal, Slovenia, Turkey etc.).
The objective of the project is to develop the web-based integrated set of software services as a tool to enhance the capabilities of crisis planners and crisis managers in both private and governmental organizations. The main effort is put into lowering threats, critical infrastructure protection and also effective and fast support in case of emergency situations. The emphasis is put on standardization (military standards already exist, others often need to be defined) and openness, assuring the interoperability with other systems on national and international levels. The project will be tested in a real environment on the pilot situations of flooding and the terrorist attack in Magdeburg, Germany and Holon, Israel.
Next to the interoperability the solution also involves information accessibility and the ways of sharing information between individual organisations. Presently, when the critical infrastructure of states is mainly private-owned, it is essential to ensure the cooperation of civil and military bodies on the regional and international levels. Another key task is to somehow engage the actual operators of various systems as the banks, utilities and telecommunication companies and others and to offer all these players the corresponding technical support.
“Everything began when we took part in the Technology Centre seminar and started to follow the Ideal-IST database”, said Jaroslav Pejcoch. “The offer to participate in a consortium arrived circa 3 weeks before the project proposal deadline.” We had to make a key decision to leave immediately to Madrid for the coordination meeting, which was the breaking point. The thing was that the non-participating companies weren’t invited to take part in the project and T-SOFT then gradually became one of the key organizations of the consortium. At the end the project went through significant changes before it was finally approved. The original coordinator was during negotiations replaced for the reason of bigger financial stability of the consortium by the operator Telefonica.
The objective of the research projects within the framework programmes is not usually a product ready to market (there are other EU programmes to support innovation of this type), but the methods, procedures and pilot applications. And what were the main benefits for the company? First of all valuable contacts, becoming more confident, gaining professional know-how, international marketing and recognition of cultural habits. The co-funding from the EU side is also beneficial, however, it is not the key point.
T-SOFT was nicely surprised by the positive experience with the competent and professionally skilled EU officers and also by the fact that it managed to gain the project already for its first trial. A large portion of the preparation of the project proposal was done via Internet (T-SOFT provides consortium with extranet SW support). As it is usual, on the whole project composition mainly representatives of four parties participated, while others made comments on the document.
For those interested to participate in EU projects
“If the company does not have European ambitions, it shouldn’t even try for EU projects”, warns Jaroslav Pejcoch. This is an absolute condition, however, not sufficient. Further it is essential to choose the research area, which is currently open in the call (i.e. where it is possible to submit the project proposal to). Last but not least it is necessary to find partners for consortium, e.g. via the Ideal-IST service, and to clearly define project benefits for ourselves and what the company can offer to others (its role in the project).
As far as the rules go, which should be change in the 7th framework programme, he mentions the tax relief for the research outcomes and the need of co-funding the input costs for the project proposal from the side of the national government, as it happens in some countries (the project proposal is accepted in very few cases and that means, that especially a small company takes a big risk). The problem is also in the management cost, which in the case of international projects with many partners reach at least 20% of the total cost. The 7% limit defined by the European Committee is then rather amusing.
Cooperation offer
T-SOFT has already prepared project proposals for Structural Funds, it was involved in the projects within the PHARE and Copernicus programs. Its biggest interest is aimed at Preparatory Action in Security Research. T-SOFT is eager to cooperate with foreign partners in the area of security, knowledge management, GIS, telecommunication and interoperability.
Jaroslav Pejcoch (53) is the T-SOFT director and co-founder, the founding member of the Czech branch office of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and a member of the board of directors of this branch office, a member of the Czech National Committee of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and a member of the presidium of The Czech Association of the Crisis Managers. He is an author of a wide scope of publications focusing on computer graphics, PC user interface, information logistics, systems for population and environment protection, system interoperability, risk management and critical infrastructure protection.
Contact
Ms Michaela Havlova
Tel. +420 261 348 738
E-mail: tsoft@tsoft.cz
www.tsoft.cz
The very beginnings of the IDS Scheer mark stretch back to 1984, when Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer with his colleagues from Saarland University founded a small consulting company focused on process engineering. Today it is an international company with shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and a significant global partner of SAP serving circa 4,000 customers in more than 50 countries around the world.
The Czech branch office has been on the local market since 1994 (originally in partnership with COMSOFT); the complete ownership integration into the parent company was carried out in 2003. IDS Scheer ?R, s.r.o. has the ISO certification for strategic consulting for business processes and support information system solution. A significant part of the product portfolio is represented also by consulting services of SAP system, the leading system of its category on the Czech market, using the company’s own ARIS Value Engineering methodology.
The first experience with the EU projects date back to 2000-2001, when Milena Hrbá?ková was charged with management of the Software Development Department and Translation Department and she decided to take advantage of synergy from knowledge of both and accepted an offer of one of the IDS partners to participate in the first project proposal (Dromeas, see below) in order to spread activities to Europe and gain international experience.
From the beginning the company was surprised by the general settings and rather free division of workload among consortium partners than is usual in commercial projects. “However, after experience with four EU projects our viewpoint is different”, states Milena Hrbá?ková. “It would be hardly possible to specify the research plan for circa three years ahead in more details. Another great experience was work in the multicultural environment of international consortium, where various cultural influences reflected in various methods of work and communication between partners. A very positive finding was that the verbal agreements were valid”. Despite that she advises the Czech participants to specify clearly in the consortium agreement the areas of decision-making, responsibilities, project costs, as well as rights for the access to and dissemination of project results.
According to Milena Hrbá?ková the company’s benefits of the participation in projects definitely include besides the actual projects outputs building “European know-how”, gaining international contacts and information regarding European markets including the possibility to compare the level of professional knowledge with CR. Although the framework programme projects do not always lead to a development of a commercial product ready to be put on the market (the output is usually a prototype), the company constantly gains and develops professional knowledge on the level of latest technologies, which can be exerted in other projects or commercial orders – which are gained thanks to positive references of participation in the project.
IST Projects
All projects mentioned below are of the STREP type (Specific Targeted Research Project) submitted to the IST (Information Society Technologies) part of the EU 5th Framework Programme, the first two in the Health - Intelligent environment for citizen centred health management category. The stated budgets are contributed by the EU by circa a half.
The first experience with the EU research projects was DROMEAS, which objective was the monitoring of the health state and performance of a sportsman during training, especially in the rehabilitation process after a trauma. The solution is applied by the Israeli-British chain of hospitals. The budget reached 4.2 mil. EUR for 2.5 years for 10 partners from 7 countries.
Soon after DROMEAS another project was approved with participation of IDS Scheer CR - HEALTHY MARKET. It involved a web application for design of personalized nutrition plans supporting healthy diet and civilization disease prevention as obesity, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. Pilot projects were rolled out in Italy and Estonia. The budget reached 4.3 mil. EUR for 2.5 years or 12 partners from 7 countries.
After experience in two projects the Milena Hrbá?ková team decided for a challenge to undertake the demanding role of coordinator in the DICTATE project, submitted to the category Systems for health professionals: creating a Health knowledge info-structure starting in summer 2002. The budget reached 3.5 mil. EUR for 4 years for 6 partners. The objective was to develop a system intermediating a voice input of medical data with the help of a pocket computer, its transformation to a standard format and unambiguous interpretation to the health record of a patient.
Last year another project proposal was approved with the participation of IDS Scheer in the 6th Framework Programme, with the objective to design a system for planning surgical interventions based on the 3D model of a heart and the entire cardiovascular system of a patient for a realistic simulation. IDS as a technical partner is responsible for the functional system specification of the CARTIDIS project.
For those interested to participate in EU projects
The active participation of staff in the international R&D projects requires, according to Milena Hrbá?ková, a combination of different skills, knowledge, abilities and approaches starting with a wide overview in technologies related to the project, and openness to new solutions and team-work through a quick orientation in the imperfectly defined problem and an ability to think and formulate on various levels of abstraction as far as the active foreign language skill (especially English) and orientation in the terminology of EU projects.
It is necessary to actively follow the development of the entire project, that means frequent communication (e-mails, phone-calls, videoconferences) and frequent travelling to the management and technical meetings. Projects also require considerable financial and legal administration, often with a need of support from other parties, which have a sufficient language skill and orientation in a given issue (e.g. audit and legal services).
The essential set of skills and knowledge is usually necessary to build from more people, sometimes it is needed to find the external sources. “This means that smaller companies are handicapped for participation in projects, as it is usually harder for them to create such a work-team, respectively to allocate its work capacity only for this type of project. The tried-and-true method is to gain from the beginning experience in project as a partner only, focused only on a particular part of a project (workpackage). In further projects the company can go for a more challenging role as a “workpackage leader”, project coordinator or to try to write and submit a project on their own”“, advises Milena Hrbá?ková.
Cooperation offer
IDS Scheer CR has besides the IST projects from the Framework Programmes experience with project proposals for eTEN, eContent, CRAFT, FET Open, Interreg and Innovation programmes. The company would like to exploit its knowledge and experience gained during the involvement in the international consortiums especially as a technology partner in the area of definition of functional specifications, security, during web portal and database design and would like to reflect it in future cooperation with other international as well as local partners.
Contact
Milena Hrbá?ková
Tel. +420 543 524 630
E-mail: m.hrbackova@ids-scheer.cz
www.ids-scheer.cz
Milena Hrbá?ková is a graduate of the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, in 2003 she received an MSc degree at the Brno International Business School. Previously she had been employed at the Brno University of Technology, Department of Computer Science and in PC-DIR as Head of the SAP R/3 Support Department. For some time she has been self-employed as an independent consultant, lecturer and translator in the field of IT. Since 1997 she has been working in IDS Scheer CR, where she was the Head of the Translation Department and later Head of the Programming Department. Since 2001 she has been responsible for European Commission projects management within the company.
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