Word reaches my inbox from the Fritz Institute, who have been field-testing the Helios software program for the last two years with a few NGOs, particularly in east Africa. For those of you keeping track, Helios is the second generation of Fritz’ Humanitarian Logistics Software which was developed and implemented with IFRC. By all accounts, the IFRC implementation was a tricky devil, and Fritz learnt a lot of hard lessons in that process. Those lessons have been put to good use, and everything I’ve heard about Helios so far has been positive.
The real question, of course, is how many NGOs will take them up on the offer – Fritz will provide a Helios license free of charge, while implementation costs will be borne by each organisation. Now this works for the big-hitter organisations such as World Vision International and Oxfam GB – who by sheer coincidence are the first two NGOs to take up the Fritz platform – but it’s a lot more difficult for smaller organisations who can’t necessarily afford those costs (particularly where they lack dedicated logistics staff).
It doesn’t matter how good your software is on its own terms – there are a lot of other factors that determine why an organisation does or doesn’t pick it up. One of the things that I think will be critical is for Fritz to encourage the development of a Helios community, where NGOs can share experiences and possibly even costs, as well as enabling better co-ordination in the field. Watch the Humanitarian Emergency and Logistics Professionals to see what sort of discussion starts to happen around Helios, if logistics is your thing.
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The logistics and transportation activities are moving towards the centre stage world around and becoming the most critical business function in today’s world of immense competition
Can you please give more information on the software itself. What does the software actually designed for and its main use?
The software’s designed for humanitarian organisations to manage large-scale logistics in developing countries. It’s been designed specifically for the needs of that type of organisation, although the Fritz Institute brings a lot of expertise from the commercial sector. If you want to know more, I’d recommend approaching the Fritz Institute directly – they are more than happy to discuss it.
Could you please let me know how much is the costs to instal software for an organization?,