Online Application Services for SMEs
- Reduces cost of IT ownership by using Application Services
- Uses online communities to share expertise amongst SMEs
Oxford Computer Consultants and Oxford Innovation collaborated with several European partners to create a web portal that provides shared state-of-the-art diagnostic and business planning software to SMEs based throughout Europe.
Online application services offer support with strategy, financing, marketing, commercial policies and human resource management. This contributes to enterprises enjoying rapid growth, evolving from entrepreneurial early years to "managed" operations, thus contributing to their economic development.
The operational development objectives of the groundbreaking Virtual Valley for SMEs (ViVA) project is an online Internet service based on the Application Service Provision (ASP) model that offers via the web portal:
Corporate application services to support small enterprise operations by
- providing Internet-enabled Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and eBusiness
- developing service customization and service management features
- meeting the flexibility needs of rapidly growing small size enterprises.
Community development services to support VIVA users by
- using knowledge management techniques to provide features such as Expertise Directory, business tenders, mergers and acquisitions information, job opportunities, etc
- online consulting services to enable self-assessment and strategic planning.
Two major services offered:
- diagnostic services using a corporate scorecard interfaced to ERP data in order to identify areas for improvement (a generic scorecard will be adjusted to country specific features)
- business planning services to enable development of a business plan including financial project development, primarily targeting commercial banks
Nick Warner, OCC Director, explains, "Sharing the cost of software amongst several SMEs gives them access to a much more powerful solution than they could have afforded separately. The idea is to reduce dramatically outsourcing costs that have driven many small enterprises out of business and, at the same time, help them to increase efficiencies."
OCC's own multilingual web content management system was used to provide members of ViVA with browser-based controls to contribute pages directly into the site in French, Italian, Romanian or English. Members of this virtual community can exchange "best practice" ideas in the forum.
