1.       

Q.

There was information published recently about new UNIDO Pharos software update. Could our readers have some additional details about this innovative project ?

A.

We at EPIC have accumulated unique experience in Pharos related training and its applications in projects implemented by UNIDO and EC for the last 12 years. Interesting statistics: the first version of Pharos was developed in 1996, there were 4 updates, Produce Plus upgrade, the implementations took place in 25 countries of the world mostly in small and medium enterprises with about 2000 installations, there were several projects in the same countries. The common response was very positive; the UNIDO software was accepted well and considered useful by most of the entrepreneurs and consultants. At the same time while working as UNIDO consultant and Pharos project supervisor, I witnessed continuous desire of enterprise users to introduce their own additional features, functions, customize and improve their applications.

In many cases it was impossible to explain "why it was done this way, not another way?" as the original design of software was done then by us as IT people not industrialists. There was no chance to have field studies and prototyping in advance of the implementation due to time and resources constraints.

2.       

Q.

What is new there?

A.

The software realizes powerful and flexible agile business intelligence system which allows accommodating new users, new measures for business processes, providing customized multi-criteria views to business results, have specific reports presented to particular user groups and much more. The enterprise users can formulate their own criteria for evaluation of particular events, impose its monitoring against their own targets, have multiple ways of receiving information about the results and this information can be customized in user defined reports.  

The Pharos database allows continuous benchmarking of results over history of an organization making it easily visible to its management and specialists at each organizational level. It supports various add-on applications such as predictive analytics, formulation and analysis of decision options, evaluation of risks and many others. There are effective yet simple tools for data extraction from all sources of information which may exist in an organization to make the updating as completely automatic process. 

3.       

Q.

It looks good however the capacity to apply such features and knowledge of average users in small enterprise may be sometime limited. How to handle the conflicting nature of power/flexibility and simplicity of such ICT tool for an average small organization?

A.

The software package to be delivered to customers would have complete pre-configured functionality enabling simple installation, setup and guided start-up. The people who would do it locally need to select PCs, run installation of server and clients, enter / identify all software users, connect to existing source databases in an enterprise, define their business targets and check system functioning. Users are provided with basic set of reports presenting the benchmarks and results in the formats similar to the ones used in Pharos, Produce Plus and FIT.
The installed software has the standard set of core performance indicators as preset including operational, strategic financial, manufacturing, quality, social and environmental ones.

Similar to previous Pharos versions, it would have one or more sample enterprise databases representing different industrial sectors. The comprehensive user reference materials and descriptions as well as application examples and case studies are provided in the format of WIKI. It allows users to add their own content, share experiences accumulating overall enterprise knowledge of applications over time.
After people got accustomed and develop knowledge they can explore a lot of opportunities in the system applications.

4.       

Q.

What organizations can use the system?

A.

Contrary to previous versions of Pharos oriented toward manufacturing and industrial environment the new system does not have such limitations and can support both private and public organizations including the service ones. .

5.       

Q.

How one can obtain the software after its release?

A.

First we will inform all enterprises which had the previous installations in countries and offer participation in its testing. After the final release we provide them with free upgrades.

We welcome support by national foundations, donors, sponsors for introducing such programmes, advanced Pharos ICT tools and services in particular countries. Any people interested in collaboration are welcome to contact us.

6.       

Q.

What else could distinguish new Pharos enterprises benchmarking software upgrade for the other similar solutions?

A.

One may compare the complete set of its rich features against total cost of ownership taking into consideration simplicity of operations as well as its learning curve. The software provides functionality similar to known solutions called "business intelligence" (BI), "business performance management" (BPM) and operational dashboards. It however has some innovative features and applications which are not yet available in the market. The complete list will be provided to customers after the final version release.  

7.       

Q.

Are there any specific target applications which can be mentioned for now?

A.

Beside applications as benchmarking tools for organizational performance of any user defined business process, the new Pharos system can support investment and banking credit risk assessment, monitoring of enterprise groups (holdings, clusters, etc.), consultants’ work with multiple enterprises, various educational and training applications, etc. There are some build in functions facilitating further system applications to support policy making by central and regional administrations in countries and have relevant service support for UNIDO.  

8.       

Q.

Could you provide examples of indicators included into the core set?

A.

All common ones including such index groups as Products, Suppliers, Customers, Sales, Costs, Quality, Stock, Competitiveness, Added Value (per product, per employee, overall), all standard financial ratios (as in FIT), Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), Labor Efficiency, Product costing, Energy consumption by major types, Water, Waste by categories, relevant quantities and costs. There are many options to add various secondary indicators locally.   

9.       

Q.

There had been a lot of discussions related to business intelligence, business performance management, dashboards, ERP systems and its importance for effective development of businesses over the last decade.  In practice the actual use of such systems increased but not significantly to feel the impact. What could be the reasons?

A.

Let take USA as one of the countries leading in ICT applications. Using Internet search one may find out that BI & BPM & Data Mining software estimated use is below 20% of  all businesses. These are mostly large corporations. The number of such advanced enterprises in the developing countries is below 2% while the total number of such SMEs worldwide is just huge.

There is however strong and long term trend as well as deep entrepreneurs’ interest to use information technology for improving business performance, business intelligence and develop relevant best practices. The process actually is at the very beginning. The necessary favorable environment which makes it possible appeared only recently, for the last, say 5 years: inexpensive computers, decreasing software prices, good open source software components, wider access to Internet in countries, basic computer proficiency of people in organizations, overall changes of attitude to running businesses and globalization effects visible in everything around us.

The major problems making introduction of these IT tools complicated may be outlined as follows:

• total cost of ownership including all components of the decision such as selection, license fees, installation, training of staff and change of business processes, third party consulting and support

• complexity of systems making selection, installation and running difficult and risky for an average enterprise management team,

• difficulties in finding and keeping necessary system support personnel

• lack of customization and flexibility of many existing solutions available on the market

New Pharos system was designed to provide enterprise management with less risk and costs, decrease operational complexity and technical support requirements, simplify its learning and applications from the very beginning.  

10.       

Q.

A.

UNIDO as a specialized agency of the United Nations is well known as promoter and accelerator of sustainable industrial development in developing countries and economies in transition, is recognized as a highly relevant, specialized and efficient provider of key services, generation and dissemination of industry-related knowledge as a technical cooperation agency.

In our work with UNIDO for the last 15 years we always tried to do our best in providing the effective and simple IT tools for UNIDO programmes and projects. While it is only a small component of whole process it can effectively contribute to overall results if suites the needs of stakeholders well.

This is the main objective of new Pharos upgrade project. It facilitates effective management of change for sustainable industrial development and helps creating new business culture.

11.       

Q.

A.

12.       

Q.

Thanks for sharing the information about on-going developments.

A.

Recent economic and financial crises demonstrated again that things can fall apart quickly. The only sure way to try to cope with instability and uncertainty is knowledge of actual business situation in detail, adaptive management in real-time, consideration of risks in advance and effective use of available own resources. In many cases SME entrepreneurs, as largest group of stakeholders, do not have detailed understanding of what is going on in their businesses and are not able compare it to business objectives easily.

Our mission is simple but a challenging one: assisting to the needs of those who are involved in making the businesses environment more effective, productive and sustainable by delivering the right IT tools.

It is our small contribution to improving the World.