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It’s Important to Set the Conditions for Running a Business Which Means Life.

[TREND, September 13th 2007]
  
Water is a commodity whose sale and distribution have become geographically limited over the last few years. Like air, water is irreplaceable; it is a basic vital need and access to it should be a matter of course. We talked to Ján Trgal, partner in the leading consulting and IT company Centire, s.r.o. about the current state of the water sector in Slovakia.

   

It is natural for customers to try to pay as little as possible and receive the highest performance. On the other hand, it is natural for a water company to try to cover entirely its costs and achieve profit as far as it is possible. Both attempts create a discussion on the subject of quality versus the price of services or products offered. How do you see this relationship?  
The price of water should reflect the quality of service, ensure resources for the operation and maintainable development of the water infrastructure, create conditions to protect the environment and also accept the consumer’s possibilities. The current conditions of water companies in comparison with other European countries are considerably restricting. Strong disproportions can be noticed between the legal requirements for the state of the infrastructure which must be reached in the prospective periods (2010, 2015), conditioned by a high consumption of financial resources for this to be attained and the possibilities of water companies to create disposable resources. The external environment and its current settings are the main problems with the operation of water companies, however, the deciding initiative for managing and influencing the direction of water companies must come from within the company: from the managers working in the water sector. In order for a company to be successful in the long term, applying the most up-to-date performance management methods is quite indispensable. Their use enables the create of new improvement opportunities for carrying out for example an optimisation of costs without reducing the extent of activities and lowering the quality of services offered, new investments from accessible resources to ensure a wider range of services in the future, important improvements to make processes more efficient etc.

 

You have been providing services in the water sector since 2001. In your opinion, how should optimally-managed companies operate and what specific advantages would this bring to the end user?

In 2001, we carried out our first project “Personnel and Process Audit” for the Central Slovak Water Company. Later, we worked for the Northern Slovak, Bratislava and Trnava water companies. We carry out our work in the given sector mainly in the field of management and direction of water companies, use of European funds, financial management, PPP project and specialist water problem areas. At the moment, we have the largest team of experts in the given problem areas made up of in-house and external specialists in the Slovak and Czech water sectors. In order for water companies to operate optimally, several measures must be taken. Implementing process management renders internal activities and processes more efficient. Furthermore, the range of water services offered must be expanded and their quality must be increased using operational maintenance and repairs, renovation and development of the infrastructure – and everything is conditioned by sufficient sources of financing (own resources and others). In the environmental field, water companies are in fact implementing the state’s policy. However, since in the previous period an entirely new system was created for the operation of the water sector, interactions are not always set optimally. Here changes must be carried out in order for the end users to perceive changes on their own in a positive way.

  

What positive changes are we talking about? By optimising operational activities, it is possible to decrease the period of disruption during failures in the water systems. By expanding the water systems, it will not be necessary for people to use their own wells, where the quality of water is not checked systematically. In the case of sewage networks, we will not be disturbed by unpleasant odours or flooded by torrential rains. By making the activities of the water companies more efficient in the area of ensuring maintainable renovation and infrastructure development, the level of connection of the population to public sewage systems will also increase. The use of septic tanks will decrease, along with the pollution of the groundwater. By renovating and building new water treatment centres, the quality of water in rivers will increase. So an optimal adjustment of the management of water companies will bring with it specific improvements for water end users.  

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