STRATEGIC
INTELLIGENCE AND
CLUSTER BUILDING
Questionnaire performed on
ICT Sector in
Region of Central Macedonia
Survey Details
30 Small to medium Enterprises in RCM
3 Academic personnel performed the
interviews on behalf RCM – URENIO
Average time of interviews 1 1/2 hour
STRATINC
Human Resource for RCM
Local Steering Committee



RCM
Panos Georgopoulos
SEPVE
Spyros Ignatiadis
AUTH – URENIO Nikos Komninos
Local Working Group




Elena Sefertzi
Isidoros Passas
Lina Kyriafini
Panos Georgopoulos
Activities
The main activities that have been
identified are



1st System Integrators
2nd Software Development
3rd ITC Services to enterprises
Number of employees
From 3 up to 125
Subcontracting
is not in the main scope of the enterprises
Exports
only one (1) company is exporting up to
50 countries and exports value is up to
40% of global turnover
Has not been identified interest for sub
contractors of which clients are original
equipment manufacturer (OEM)
Company Management
(1)
Industrial properties


Although industrial properties are considered
as very important, up to now very few of the
companies do have any of them registered
A trend have been identified that they will start
registering their industrial properties mainly in
Hellenic Industrial Property Organization
Company Management
(2)
Management indicators




Quality
Appears to be the most important indicator
Planning
Although it have been stated as important,
appears to be only in short term
Customer satisfaction
The second most important indicator, quite a few
of them have monitoring systems
Dashboards
The do exist but only for short term planning and
monitoring
Organization






The sample mainly consisted of SMEs therefore the budget (% turnover) could
not be answered by most of the enterprises
Administration
Exist in most of the enterprises
Engineering and design department
Software
development department is included in most of them
Information management department
2 out of the 20
do have Information management department
Marketing department
Mainly is outsourced
R&D Is performed by most of the SMEs but not by an organized department
Company Management
(3)
Long life training



Considered as a very important issue but because mainly is
performed internally only few the SMEs gave values for Budget
(% Wage bill), No days / year / employee
Domains : Operating Systems, Hardware, Networking,
Marketing, Business processes
Training subcontractors or organisms Microsoft, SISCO, HP,
Intel
Employees education




PHDs
Masters
University Degrees
Technological Institutes Degrees
<1%
5%
30%
50%
Company Strategy
Orientation






Detection and conquest of new markets: Interested
Improvement of the products quality: The only way to
advance their business goals
Export : Not considered as of great interest
Development of new products: Very interesting
Diversification: Interesting but Vertically
Specialization: Very interesting
Company Strategy (2)
Market

None of the companies answered the field of their status in Europe, neither the field of
Growth in Europe
Impulsion



The targets appear to by only short term for the next year up to maximum 3 years from very
few of the enterprises
The main reason that have been stated is that the ICT sector is very volatile therefore very
difficult for them to set goals or targets.
Mainly they are market followers
Competitors



Very few of them stated competitors in Europe or worldwide
The competitors that were mentioned were mainly either local or in Greece.
The general sense is that they do know quite well their competitors
Constraints



The main local constraint that have been mentioned by most of the SMEs is
telecommunication Infrastructure (very difficult to get fast Internet ADSL)
The Social constraint that was mentioned is that the graduates from Academic institutes are
not qualified for the real business world
Most of the companies stated the general commercial constraint is the financial situation of
the Greek market (cashflow problems)
INFORMATION
SYSTEM
Electronic networks
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
ISDN
ADSL
Internet Conection Type
All of them do have and use Local Area Network
Applications that are used
by the companies
70%
60%
50%
40%
intranet
EDM
mail server
30%
20%
10%
0%
Applications


How many personal computers? At least one for each employ
How many personal electronic mailboxes?
At least one
for each employ
Press Subscriptions
The main informative mean is considered to be INTERNET
Scientific and technical Publications
Very few of them considered themselves diligent readers
Business press
Subscribers mainly to one
Regional Daily Press
Diligent reader to at least one of them
National Daily Press
Diligent reader to at least one of them
International Daily Press
Diligent reader to at least one of them
Professional and Specialized Magazines
INNOVATION and
WATCH


Product: Quite few of the SMEs mentioned
examples of new products that have produced
during the 5 last years
Processes: The most innovative change was
the implementation of ISO 9000/2000 quality
manual
Fields of survey
Not
relevant
Regulations
Some
relevance
Average
relevance
Great
relevance
+
Markets
+
Technologies
+
Competitors
+
Suppliers
+
Customers
+
Products
+
Process
+
Recruitment
+
Training
+
Financing aids and subsidies
+
Standards
+
Sources of information
Not
relevant
Employees
Other companies in the same cooperation, alliances
Some
relevance
Average
relevance
+
+
+
Customers
+
Suppliers
Competitors
Universities, laboratories
+
+
+
Consultancy businesses
Professional associations
Public or private research institutions
Professional publications
Exhibitions
+
+
+
+
+
Internet
Local or area institutional
National institutional
European institutional
Great
relevance
+
+
+
Watch practice
In strict terms of watch very few of the SMEs questioned
do have a watch methodology
Most of them although they are applying not formalized
or documented watch methodologies
Which tools of search for information uses the company?
Internet and meetings
Which tools of management for information uses the
company?
ERP - CRM
Which tools of diffusion for information uses the
company?
E-mails and internal meetings
Satisfaction degree with
outsourcing
not relevant
some relevance
average relevance
great relevance
Technical quality of
the service
+
Human quality of
the service
+
Confidentiality
+
Return on
investment
+
Transfer of
competences
+
Respect of the
deadlines
Reason for absence
of call with an
outsourcer
+
+
Kinds of watch
No
Empirical
Technological
+
Products
+
+
Competitors
Formalized
Suppliers
+
Customers
+
+
Financing
Regulations
+
+
Markets
Juridical
Research of
networks or
clusters
Research of
partners
Outsourced
+
+
+
Nature of the problems: No problems have been stated
NETWORKS
Participation of the company in
organizations


SEPVE
Chamber of Commerce and Industry
CLUSTER
QUESTIONNAIRE
Only two of the companies are
participating a cluster
3. Potentials, ambitions to build a new
network:

Most of the companies expressed the
willingness to participate in a cluster oriented
to sales advancement