Annual reports – How we are doing
The data from annual reports provides us with the opportunity to stop, think about how we did in previous years, how far we have come, and what goals we could declare achieved. Looking back, we may certainly feel a considerable degree of pride over each year that has passed.
The strength of a team is tested in difficult times.
Here at PosAm, 2021 will go down as one of the most difficult
years in our over 30-year long history. The year saw the accumulation
of several serious complications. Tackling any one of them
individually would have been a challenge, but because they all
came simultaneously, it was made even more difficult. We had to
cope with an unforeseen 30% reduction in contracts for our key
customer, the Ministry of Finance. We also had to face significantly
higher costs than originally estimated in our development
projects for ČEZ and Generali Česká pojišťovna. In both cases, we
underestimated the amount of work involved. The loss of several
key staff from the DCOM project (Data Centre of Municipalities
and Cities) also caused us unexpected problems. Dealing with
these negative impacts was further complicated by the impaired
mobility of our staff due to the home office regime during the
pandemic.
2021 was challenging also for the Finance Division. Our main priority was
to ensure financial stability during a difficult year marked by challenging projects for ČEZ and Generali – Česká pojišťovna, as well as reduced deliveries for the Ministry of Finance.
2022 will be a transitional year for our company from many perspectives.
Although the financial results for 2021 did not meet our expectations, we gained a lot of valuable experience. While we cannot consider all risks in key projects from the previous year to have been neutralised, we believe we have taken many steps to get back to the path to profitability.
The cautious purchase behaviour of our customers, which was evident in the first year of the pandemic, continued in 2021. Similarly, the public sector began to reassess its IT investments quite significantly and it unexpectedly reduced the volume of orders by 30%. However, despite the challenging period, we were able to retain all of our key customers and develop mutually beneficial collaborations.
The company’s motivation is to increase its competitiveness. We can see it in two areas. In the first area, we seek to shift the development and delivery of large IT solutions and products away from an approach based predominantly on the knowledge and experience of a given solution team – towards the level of a fine-tuned engineering process. At each stage of the delivery, the best knowledge and experience are available to the implementation team in the form of methodologies for the design of the
solution as well as for the delivery process. Initial use of the methodologies has resulted in very positive feedback from our customers on the clarity and quality of the proposed designs for complex
solutions.
ParkDots completed a large number of projects in the past year. The key projects include the parking system for the city of Pardubice and projects in Bratislava. We supplied Pardubice with 3,421 occupancy sensors, 5,000 Bluetooth identifiers for drivers, LPR cameras and LED signs. This project included the integration of data from these systems into the city’s central system.
In PosAm, we have long been dedicated to developing and improving the
qualifications of our internal employees, especially in the software divisions. Last year’s shortage of quality people, which we felt in some positions, combined with the unfavourable situation on the labour market, only intensified our efforts. We are also looking for internal resources
using competency models for personal growth and potential development
of existing employees. As this activity requires an objective assessment of
technical skills, we have been looking for a way to measure and manage their level of expertise.