© URENIO Research Unit 2004 URENIO Online Benchmarking Application Thessaloniki 7 th of October 2004 Isidoros Passas BEng Computer System Engineering

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Benchmarking  Is an innovative management tool that supports upper management for the identification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of units, based on quantitative statistical analysis.  Each unit is compared with other units in the scope of a set of predefined indices.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Examples of Use  Benchmarking can be applied on the following units:  Countries  Regions  Governmental organizations  Products  Services  Software Tools

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 General Benchmarking Methodology  Definition of the questionnaire that will collect the raw data from units.  Definition of the set of benchmarking indices.  Collection of raw data from a statistical viable number of units.  Creation of Benchmarking Report based on the above.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Methodology applied by URENIO ActorTask URENIO Definition of the questionnaire that will collect the raw data from units. URENIO Definition of the set of benchmarking indices. URENIO Training of specialized Benchmarking consultants for the collection of data Benchmarking Consultants Collection of data URENIO Web Application Creation of Benchmarking Report based on the above. URENIO – Consultants Commented Benchmarking Report

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Main application characteristics.  Web Based application  Is supported by RDBS: SQL Server  Supports Multilingual applications both for the user interface and benchmarking questionnaires.  Produces on line benchmarking reports, based on the defined criteria by the user.  Online administrator module has been developed, to expand easily the application, to support new benchmarking sections.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Use of the application 4. Creation of report 3. Define the sample 2. Data entry for the company 1. Login to benchmarking application

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Roadmap to application

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Login to application The users of the application are the certified Benchmarking consultants from URENIO. Each consultant after his certification is provided with a Username and a password by the administrator of application (URENIO).

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Presentation of the companies The application is cable to present the companies of each Benchmarking consultant with the following ways 1.Search for a company 2.Alphabetic list (10 company name per page) 3.All the companies

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Company list of each user Presents information as:  Code of the company in the database  If the data have been checked from the administrator of application (URENIO)  If the company have been locked by the administrator of application (URENIO)  If the company is available for the creation of benchmarking report

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 List of all the companies of each user

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Search for a company The search is based on keywords. The fields for search are the: company name and the company trademark.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Questionnaire Sections If the data of a company are being locked by the administrator then the data of the company can not be modified and the company can not be deleted. This is done to guarantee data integrity of the application

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Section Example

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 NACE Identification wizard  Activities of each company are categorized using NACE Codes. For each company a primary and a secondary activity can be defined.  Categorization is utilizing 3 levels of NACE codes. An online utility has been developed to help users identify the NACE code that his company belongs to.  The utility presents the NACE codes in a tree structure. The user can click on each node of the tree and select the appropriate activity.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 NACE Wizard Example

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Creation of the sample  For the creation of sample of companies, the user can select:  Prefecture or prefectures  Category or categories of main activity  Category or categories of secondary activity  Legal form or forms  Number of personnel  Date of completion  If the data have been checked by the administrator of application (Valid data)  If the companies data are locked from the administrator of application (Locked)  If companies are available for the creation of benchmarking reports from the administrator of application (Report)  If the user does not select no one from the choices, the selected company will be compared with all the companies that exist in the base of data.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Sample creation

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Description of sample  The application automatically converts the SQL query, that was created by users’ options, in natural language.  Important feature of the application it is that before the creation of report the user knows how many companies will be included in the sample.  The total number of companies, is the number of companies that satisfy the criteria, thus the user know immediately if the sample can be considered statistically acceptable for the creation of report.  The report is created in average in 90 seconds and above depending on the INTERNET connection.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Benchmarking Report

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Report structure For the better and more useful presentation of benchmarking report the indicators are presented grouped in thematic units and sub-sections. In each unit the following details are presented:  description of indicators  technical notes for each indicator,  comparison graphs of the indicators,  statistical results of each indicator.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Presented Statistical data for each index  Real Value of index,  Percentage Classification of enterprise in the sample,  The possibility of Improvement (100%),  The maximum value of each indicator,  The minimum value of each indicator,  The average of indices values of the sample,  The Standard Deviation of indices values,  The number of enterprises of the sample for each indicator.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Percentage classification The percentage classification in the sample is presenting the percentage of the companies in the sample with indices values less than the index value of the selected company.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Improvement possibility The improvement possibility presents in percentage the distance of the value of the index of the compared company from the maximum value of the index in the sample. For the best graphical presentation the minimum value is considered 1 even if it is calculated to be 0.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Example of spider graph.   The graph presents the data in two different colored overlapping layers.   It presents :   The values of percentage classification in the blue area color.   The values of improvement possibility in the red area color.   In the vertices of each spike of the radar the following values are presented.   The code of index   The maximum value of each index.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Example of cumulative vertical percentage bars. This graph for each index (i.e. Question) presents the percentage that did not answer the question of answered positively on negatively.

© URENIO Research Unit 2004 Thank you. Further Info