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| Interview with Spiros Pampoukidis |
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ARIADNE: We know that your core business spans all levels of the Public Administration, and that your customers come from the area of local government (municipalities), the Prefectures as well as central government authorities like Ministries.
How do you judge the culture and the attitude within the public sector? Do you see any differences between the different levels of the Public Administration? And what are the commonalities that you can spot?
PAMPOUKIDIS: Defining the culture within the public sector is a very popular matter of discussion and a lot of definitions and judgment have been given and expressed. But we should realize that the culture within the public sector is part of our culture in general and it reflects the way our society is structured and organized.
Looking at the public sector from its mission point of view one could say that the public sector must constantly strive to help its citizens in their everyday life. This is also a main difference between the several levels of the Public Administration.
The first level for example has a stronger interface to the citizens as the second level.
In order for the public sector to achieve its mission in a more efficient way there is a need for a new kind of management. A management that focuses on three key points, productivity, effectiveness and cost reduction. Here is also where Information Technology comes into the foreground.
The technology is certainly a prerequisite for this but not able to solve the problem only by itself. Process rationalization, staff motivation combined with responsibility concession and valuation is also needed and must go together with the introduction of any Information System. To meet these goals a lot of work has been done in the public sector at the last years and I strongly believe that this will have a positive impact on its major mission.
ARIADNE: OTS, your company, is also considered as a role model for what we tend to call an SME, i.e. a small and / or medium-sized enterprise. At some point in the recent past, your company was partly acquired and is now member of the ALTEC group of companies. On the other hand, what I personally know from direct communications I had with several of your people is that you try to keep the profile of a small company in terms of caring for your people and not letting an impersonal touch affect the way you work.
How do you comment the above?
PAMPOUKIDIS: It is true that we are one of the leading organizations in the Balkan region and very proud of it. It has been proved time and time again that our co-o per ation is at the highest level.
In OTS we strongly believe in some values. These values are central to the way we are acting. Integrity is an essential attribute of our history and the way we do business.
Our devotion to this means that our actions and relationships are based to following irreconcilable values.
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Respect: We treat each other with respect and decorous. |
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Honesty: Honesty rules our relationships inside and outside of our company. Reliability: We keep our commitments and obligations. |
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Responsibility: We take the responsibility of our actions. |
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Quality: We offer secure and trustworthy products of highest possible quality. |
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Chances: We offer equal and right changes to all of our employees. |
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Society: We have a positive contribution to the Society. |
ARIADNE: You have been developing systems and applications that are used on a daily and quite intensive basis by several thousands of public sector employees. Though it is tempting for me to ask for quality criteria you use when developing these applications, as I am also aware of the way that these systems are purchased, usually taking much time for their planning in terms of bureaucracies and overheads, I would like to ask you how do you in general judge the usability of the applications used in the public sector? (i.e. not only those systems developed by OTS.)
PAMPOUKIDIS: When it comes to provide electronic systems for the use of any corporation either public or private, usability is one of the most ambiguous terms in IT. On the question whether OTS has and therefore achieves its quality criteria the fact that OTS is ISO 9002 certified and that every year our market margin raises as much as 10%, could provide a comprehensive answer. But we are not relying only on this. We try to have a constant evaluation from our customers by means of questionnaires and per sonal contacts. Very much time is spent to evaluate and remark the results of this effort in a very critical way.
It is well known that the applications not only used in the public sector in general lack on usability.
That comes because applications are very often designed from the develo per - and not from the user point of view.
Designing an application one should strongly have in mind some essential characteristics of the candidate user like age, level of education, IT knowledge and finally its culture.
Users from the public sector have special characteristics and needs that are usually not taking into account by the designers of software applications. We believe that OTS differentiates in this matter building applications that are user friendly.
ARIADNE: European Union currently counts 25 member countries. And what is a usual criticism to the companies is that instead of opening their minds and plans for this big market, they exhibit introversion and a spirit of risk aversion.
In your case, the ‘exercise' is rather simple and straightforward: you shall either address with your products and services a bigger part of this European public administration market, or you shall create new ‘production' and innovation cells in other EU countries which will provide you with a bigger product and service portfolio, or both.
What do you think on this?
PAMPOUKIDIS: First of all, risk aversion is something that should be avoided by any company. On the other hand it is obvious that risk analysis is absolutely necessary. As for your exercise it may seem an interesting and possibly one that few IT companies can answer at this juncture but it is one that has been put to us even before the European Union had 25 member states. Early on we understood that organisations and entrepreneurs will have to constantly develop new products or services to compete with ever-increasing number of contenders from increasingly extended IT world. We are at the verge of breaking new ground when it comes taken up projects outside our backyard.
Indeed, it is to our interest to address with our products and services part of the European public administration market but not only of those who are new. For example we are strongly interested in the German market and we believe that this is the right moment to try it.
ARIADNE: A comment that I had the opportunity to cross check with different people that come from within the Public Administration relates with the extremely low degree of technical / technological as well as managerial know how in all levels of the public sector.
I can understand that it is difficult for you to take an open position on this for obvious reasons, but I would still like to have your view on how this can change. What I can for sure not accept is this exposure to seminars and training that leaves people with certificates that might slightly increase their salaries, but at the end, I don't think that the solution is to have all of them receiving 1000 hours of seminars in Power Point, when they actually are never about to make a presentation. This simply means that money is spent in the wrong directions.
What is your view on this?
PAMPOUKIDIS: The public sector employees in the lower levels have very little need to go through seminars once they have started their careers. Public servants need to have good visionary instincts. They need to see how IT investment can lead to making things more transparent, easier to manage, and end up facilitating all kinds of needs that weren't possible before. Once this is understood by all involved then Public Administration will have made the first and possibly biggest step, into increasing their technological skills. This can be done when time is focused on advocating training and project management in order to make sure that individual departments are able to take a professional approach.
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