TOP SERVIS 2 Project

Basic goals of the project TOP SERVIS 2

As part of the declared strategy to enhance the quality of our company (whose primary goals are given at the address Quality assurance strategy) we have prepared a project TOP SERVIS. With its help we want to provide our company staff with quite a unique certified training at all management levels in accountancy and auditing. The aim of the project is to create 10 new jobs which are going to be included, as part of the project, in the certified continuous training. The outcome of the two-year project will be a team of experts. Individual members of the staff will be awarded a certificate as an assistant accountant, balance sheet accountant and a certified accountant.

Our training partner in the TOP SERVIS project is the Institute of Association of Accountants, Prague. This partner has been chosen because it has a professional training team and has gained wide international recognition for the quality of its certification system of accountant training and its comparability and compatibility with training systems abroad.

After termination of the project our company staff will be able to show that they have quite unique qualifications in the field. This is crucial for receiving orders which will be a competitive advantage not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad. This will also be an essential prerequisite for successful team activities, both at home and abroad.

Our project TOP SERVIS was submitted as an application for a grant from the government funds of the Czech Republic and the European Social Fund. It was successful and on 24 March 2006 an agreement on contribution was signed. This was a good start of the project.

Basic points of the sophisticated version of the TOP SERVIS 2 project

We are confident and the present development and experience bear us out that in a highly increasing competitive market, companies will invest a great deal of effort in increased specialization in different branches of business. For this reason there will be a growing demand for highly specialized and guaranteed services in the economic sector and companies will endeavour to outsource them. We have succeeded in creating the structure of the data centre and we have practical experience of running the centre for more than one year. Companies showed a lot of interest in our services and as a result our original potential was sold out in the year 2007 and therefore another terminal server was purchased and put into operation. The data centre, which we are running today, fits perfectly the definition of the so-called „Shared Services Centre“ within the framework of the operational program „ICT and Strategic Services”, which will be launched and open to registration for the term of 2007 to 2013 most probably in September 2007. In cooperation with the Raven a. s. Agency we are going to submit the project for approval and funding from the EU Structural Funds immediately after we are invited to register projects.

We have some experience with computer hardware operation and software administration of the data centre and we have succeeded in the area of grant financing from the EU Structural Funds. We have been awarded all professional certificates, auditor’s certificate (certificate of accounts) and accountant certificate. We are members of the Chamber of Auditors of the Czech Republic and the Chamber of Certified Accountants of the Czech Republic. Our services are also based on the certificate ČSN EN ISO 9001:2001.

The above-described technological knowledge and our economic qualifications helped us create a project TOP SERVIS whose basic points are presented below:

1. Starting the process of registration of the name „TOP SERVIS“ with the use of the trademark at the Industrial Property Office of the Czech Republic. The process of trademark registration has been successfully completed. As part of the trademark we have registered the way of providing services in the Shared Services Centre by a certified team using the technology of operation of the data centre.
2. Building of a sophisticated version of the Shared Services Centre on a platform of the data centre using the above-mentioned technologies. The Centre is located in the company’s own property. The new server, whose configuration is given, can be accessed by as many as 240 outside clients at a time. The new data centre will be located in Brno, Vídeòská Street. At present, negotiations are conducted with the owner of the property about the purchase. The location of the property will allow the purchase of about 20 parking places on the premises, both for clients and the staff.
3. Economics: This project will create 20 new jobs of accountants and assistant accountants. After the data centre starts working at full capacity, the staff will be in charge of 80 new clients. Each member will be responsible for three protected electronic keys (secure remote access). With its structure, method for providing services and composition of capital costs, the project is suited for applying for funding from the financial resources of the European Union within the operational program „ICT and Strategic Services“ which will be launched in September 2007. In cooperation with the Raven a.s. Agency we are going to submit the project immediately after launching the competition. Within this operational program it is expected that the return on investment will be 60 % for the so-called southern region. The return on investment will have the form of non-repayable subsidy from the EU Structural Funds. Provided the program is financed from the bank loan the funds obtained after the approval of the project are a very important source of paying off the debt. In appendices you will find the economics of the whole project in the form of structured capital costs (technology, property and office equipment). The forecast gives monthly costs and monthly yields. The project is cost-effective even in case of gradual paying off the overall bank loan without drafting a back donation which might serve as an extra loan payment.
4. The activities of the Shared Services Centre are as follows: building up a human resources base (20 new jobs) and subsequent utilization of their potential in providing shared services such as services of the accounts department and reporting outputs sent to clients, to the Inland Revenue of the Czech Republic and outside users of economic information (statistics, investors, banks, etc.) and services related to hardware, software and client data on a platform of the information system Helios Orange implemented on the servers of the data centre, which allows online access of workers acting on behalf of clients via the use of the secured electronic keys. All this package of services will be provided in accordance with the agreed procedures and will use technologies which are registered under the trademark „TOP SERVIS“.
5. For subsequent franchising we are going to prepare a technological manual which will give a detailed description of the developed technology of the data centre and requirements for its proper operation such as specific hardware and specific installation of software, requirements for qualifications of hardware and software administrators. The manual will also contain detailed descriptions of the methods for providing some extra services such as keeping accounts and calculating salaries. If the clients are interested in other services, outsourcing of the accounts department is possible. This means online processing and sharing clients’ data within the data centre. The technological manual will also be used for controlling activities at the data centres run by our company and will form the basis of franchising these technologies under the trademark Top Servis®.
6. The social dimension of the project: As the technologies allow working form home, the project will be an opportunity to recruit some disabled people. This aspect increases the chance of receiving a grant and may bring considerable tax advantages. It also means stabilization of the workforce. The majority of the personnel are women and working from home may help stabilize female workers during their maternity leave and enable them to keep in touch with their profession which is rapidly developing. If female workers lose touch with their profession, they usually have to work really hard to catch up.
7. After creating these new jobs, setting up new educational projects funded by the EU is possible. The aim of these projects will be certification of accountants and intensive language courses. As a precaution, effects from these associated projects have not been included in the economics of the basic TOP SERVIS project. However in the directions of funding from the EU Structural Funds for the period 2007-2113 there is a suitable program.
8. Our application for funding the project from the EU funds, which will be submitted in cooperation with the Raven a. s. Agency in September 2007, will be supported by a regional television campaign which should aim at the middle classes. We have been given a prior consent that the media partner of the TOP SERVIS project will be the company Fatem TV a.s. which is an association of regional televisions. (We have a clip and now we are negotiating about contracts for broadcasting in the period from September to December 2007).
9. Our company as the founder of the project and its future administrator will undergo re-structuralization this year. This is the scenario of the re-structuralization:
   1. Purchase of the real estate for the newly-established joint-stock company named SM-DATA®. The next stage is to establish the data centre of the company.
   2. After the TOP SERVIS2 project has been finished, represented by the physical entity Ing. Karel Smetana, SM-DATA®, we would like to value the company of this physical entity during March 2008. By raising the capital stock and capital surplus of the SM-DATA® a.s. company, we would like to put this company of the physical entity in the joint-stock company.
   3. As a result only the joint-stock company will continue to do business. This company will combine all the previous experience and trademarks of the physical entity Ing. Karel Smetana, SM-DATA®.
10. The goal is to provide this service in all main business centres such as Brno and Prague.
11. Our medium-term goal is to test the operation of the data centres in Brno and Prague and then to expand the business in the Czech Republic and abroad by finding suitable partners in other places and extending the services under a franchise agreement.

For our projects we need a training centre that would be interested in the development of the data centre and its promotion. Within the projects the training centre will ensure certification of accountants and at the same time it may offer its members a very interesting start of their career or the goal of their lifelong endeavour. We have obtained the prior consent from the Institute of Association of Accountants, (Institut svazu úèetních a.s.) that this company will become our partner. This institute is also our educational partner in the TOP SERVIS2 project.

Our partner in the process of setting up suitable projects and applying for the finance from the EU funds is the GRANTIKA České spořitelny, a.s. (www.grantika.cz) which is very successful in obtaining grants (the sum from their successful applications over the last two years exceeded 2.5 billion Czech crowns).

Our media partner in the project will be the Fatem TV a.s. company. This company will also conduct the campaign whose aim will be to support the project.

We have entered into the negotiations with other companies that should support the project. They are CEBRE – Czech Business Representation and Association of Small and Medium-sized Companies and Traders of the Czech Republic.

As we have been putting into practice the simplified version of the project (our own data centre), we have decided to invest some money in the presentation of the project. Links to our website can be found in all important Internet providers in the Czech Republic, links to our website are on the websites of our partners, the Institute of Association of Accountants a.s. in Prague and the European Social Fund. The last activity of this kind was a full-page presentation in an economic supplement to the newspaper Mladá fronta. The presentation was made in cooperation with the company Trade Wind s.r.o.

If you are interested in our vision, we are ready to welcome you to our premises and to show you the results of our present work.

We look forward to meeting you and to our potential future cooperation.