Written by: andrewsandon
Organisations in the public sector are more and more turning to information technology (IT) in order to comply with the central governments that modernise government agenda. However, there is a need in ensuring that the implementation of main IT systems in not regarded as the end but the means to the end of attaining major improvements of performance. This aeticle suggests that though IT can be an agent for change as it gives opportunities to do things in different way, some business processes redesign should also be undertaken and connected with an IT strategy. The implementation of IT without the processes reengineering might fail in delivering anticipated benefits. The paper stresses the links between process reengineering and benchmarking to allow the design of improved processes and considers approaches to BPR which are best suited to the public sector. A case study in a local authority is used to illustrate the need to link technology with process to bring about major organisational change.
Importance of management Any successful business, organisation, or association uses management as its main function. Management includes four distinct categories, which are planning, organising, leading, andcontrolling. These four functions have different characteristics, but conjoined all of them form the qualities of a successful manager. Planning This function includes developing a plan that consists of defining the goals and objectives of management, identifying tasks or how the objectives will be achieved, which resources are required, and associating timelines and budgets for the success of task on hand. Planning also includes fulfilling the project’s plan, together with careful controls to ensure the plan is being managed according to plan. Organising Organising is the command, control and feedback relationships among employees in an agency, and their information. The data flow structure for the performance management system generally follows the organisational structure. Begin the paragraph for your second topic. There are several aspects to consider about the goal of the business organisation. These characteristics are explicit, deliberate, and recognized. Ideally, these features are carefully considered, and established. Leading An organisation has the greatest chance of being successful when all of the employees work toward achieving its goals. Since leadership involves the exercise of influence by one person over others, the quality of leadership exhibited by supervisors is a critical determinant of organisational success. Thus, supervisors study leadership in order to influence the actions of employees toward the achievement of the goals of the organisation.
Controlling The subject of controlling is a sensitive subject. Every company has to have measure of control to ensure that the job on had is being done. The Coast Guard a lot of individuals in leadership positions they abuse the control aspect of a subordinate. The abuse became obvious in some instances. There are supervisors that will micromanage sailors jury to them. In the end those individuals are weeded. Introduction to Information Management In recent years the public sector has increasingly been under pressure to improve performance driven by a number of central government initiatives such as the Best Value regime and Public Performance Reporting. Added to this pressure is the current Modernising Government agenda or what has become known as information age government or e-government. Ambitious targets have been set for electronic service delivery culminating in the goal that all services be available electronically by 2008 (Cabinet Office 1999). Public services do not have the same bottom line aims of the private sector in terms of profit maximisation but it is an over simplification to see the public sector as a pressure free environment. Internal markets and competitive funding have introduced business disciplines and there remains downward pressure on public expenditure and ever increasing statutory responsibilities. It is inevitable therefore that the pursuit of performance and value for money improvements will be linked to the e government agenda and the use of information technology (IT). Central government estimates that the public sector currently spends £3bn per annum on IT services and this figure is anticipated to reach £4.75bn by 2004. (Cabinet Office 2002) This would tend to demonstrate not only that expenditure is significant and increasing but that the use of IT continues to be regarded as a tool to bring about the improvements identified in the strategies of public sector bodies. There may however be a danger that the introduction of IT systems are seen as an end in themselves instead of being part of a wider process to meet departments and agencies overall business objectives. There is widespread recognition that technology in itself does not bring about efficiency (Lenk 1997). IT may provide the core mechanism for information flow and may therefore be an essential element in any business improvement but the processes undertaken by an organisation need to be transformed or reengineered. This process change is the means by which departments and agencies respond to and anticipate changes in their environments. It is also an opportunity to bring in new ways of working that will deliver business objectives in a more efficient and effective way. Such transformation of processes is commonly known as Business Process Reengineering (BPR). It can be defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost quality service and speed. (Hammer and Champy 1993) Reengineering involves revising organisational processes. It means starting from scratch in designing the core business process instead of analysing the current one. It involves reconfiguration of work to better serve customers, the true evaluators of business performance. Reengineering forces us to radically challenge the way that organisations are run and to redesign the organisations around the desired outcomes rather than functions or departments. Traditionally, work improvement programmes look at functional areas such as marketing, accounting or manufacturing. BPR considers processes in their entirety and cuts across organisational structures and boundaries. (Burke and Peppard 1995) Although BPR is a specific management philosophy pioneered in the early 1990's by Hammer and Champy (who first used the term BPR) it has come to be used as a more generic term for any form of radical reengineering, redesign or transformation. Whilst sounding a note of caution in using IT as a panacea for improving performance it is important to be aware that IT expands the possibilities to do things in a different way and can bring efficiencies in productivity. Given that BPR calls for radical and fundamental redesign it gives the opportunity for innovative use of new technology and indeed demands it. (Pratchett 1997) IT is one of the most prevalent facilitators of process change and is often the primary catalyst, which allows a company to achieve its business objectives. It is regarded as the essential enabler of reengineering. (Chan and Land 1999) The rise of BPR in the early 90's coincided with the emergence of increasingly more powerful and cheap IT which expanded the possibilities to improve efficiency and quality of service. (Johnson and Scholes eds. 2001) Types of Business Process Reengineering Thaens et al 1997, identify three types of reengineering each with its own level of "ambition": Work Process Redesign This covers single areas of work and considers links and relationships between the process and other work processes to be fixed. The process will be redesigned and include descriptions of what IT applications are needed and how the job content of operatives is changed Business Process Redesign This covers the reengineering of complex business processes and will look at wider issues including the management style of the organisation. There is greater emphasis on overall outputs and a greater degree of cross cutting. Again links to IT applications and job contents are important. Business Transformation This is the most extreme form of business redesign. This will start by reassessing the overall vision and mission of the organisation with an emphasis on corporate values and organisational performance. All business processes will then be reengineered against this new vision. Principles of Business Process Reengineering In applying BPR to the public sector in response to the pressures outlined in the introduction the following principles should be considered: (CCTA 1994) Create a Customer Focus Failure to meet the needs of customers will create further pressure for change. It is important to note that customer facing activities will often cut across functional boundaries. This is a particular concern in the public sector due to the nature of the services provided. Rethink Functions and Processes Using BPR requires a shift to examine processes and outcomes rather than functions. Challenge Organisational Principles Organisations must ask themselves why activities are undertaken, what do they cost and what value do they produce. Simplify and Discard Only those processes which provide added value and which are absolutely necessary should be retained. Measure Performance It is important that outcomes are measured against previous performance and with the achievements of other outside bodies through benchmarking. Set Challenging Objectives This is a very important aspect of BPR. Targets should be set which are not achievable through current (or continuous) improvement processes. Such targets, which can be described as out of reach but not out of sight (CCTA1994), will force the organisation into more adventurous and innovative thinking. Empower People Those given the task of managing the change process and running the business once the changes have been implemented must be given support. Utilise IT IT opportunities must be examined and how IT can be used to support new requirements. Applying Business Process Reengineering In simple terms the application of BPR involves answering the following questions: Where are we now? The organisation needs to understand its existing processes before attempting to redesign them. It is important at this stage that there is a balance between achieving the appropriate level of understanding and paying too much attention to the current process. Too much emphasis on what is done currently is likely to constrain the ability to make radical changes. Where do we want to be? This stage can be difficult in that it requires creativity and innovation. There also needs to be a link between the managers who understand current operations and the need for change and the opportunities offered by new technology. Are those mangers IT literate and if not can internal IT specialists or consultants help to identify new ideas given their lack of operations knowledge? At this stage in the process the use of benchmarking as a tool to complement BPR will often be the method employed by the public sector. Benchmarking can be described as the ongoing search for best practices that produce superior performance when adapted and implemented in ones organisation (Bogan and English 1994). BPR as a technique stresses the importance of innovation but to adapt the processes of successful organisations either from within the organisations own sector or beyond removes some of the uncertainty over the processes being adopted and may lessen the risk of failure. The apparent non-competitive nature of the public sector may also lend itself to such collaborative approaches How do we get there? Given the wide and varied structures of organisations it is inevitable that there will be a variety of approaches to BPR. Burke and Peppard (1995) outline the following broad steps to be taken: Consideration must be given to how implementation is carried out. Hammer and Champy (1993) suggest a "big bang" approach, which is in line with their radical and quantum leap type improvement strategy. Burke and Peppard (1995) suggest the step by step implementation of change and the use of pilot schemes in a part of the organisation prior to the roll out to the organisation as a whole. The link to IT and the availability of technical infrastructure are important concerns in considering the method of implementation. Burke and Peppard suggest that there is a trade off between the common sense approach of redesigning processes before bringing in new technology and using IT to facilitate and as a valuable tool for shaping processes. This is an important issue and is illustrated later in this paper in the case study example. Business Process Reengineering in the Public Sector Given the pressures on the public sector outlined in the introduction it is not surprising that such demands to behave more like the private sector have led to the adoption of popular techniques such as BPR. There are many other examples of such moves to adapt private sector techniques such as the use of benchmarking by local authorities and TQM in the health service. Whilst there is no doubt that the public sector needs to take a more businesslike view of its operations it is important to ensure that any initiative takes account of softer political, social and cultural issues alongside harder systems redesign issues. (Johnson and Scholes 2000) Executive Summary Any successful business, organisation, or association uses management as its main function. Management includes four distinct categories, which are planning, organising, leading, andcontrolling. These four functions have different characteristics, but conjoined all of them form the qualities of a successful manager. In recent years the public sector has increasingly been under pressure to improve performance driven by a number of central government initiatives such as the Best Value regime and Public Performance Reporting. Added to this pressure is the current Modernising Government agenda or what has become known as information age government or e-government. Ambitious targets have been set for electronic service delivery culminating in the goal that all services be available electronically by 2008 (Cabinet Office 1999). Public services do not have the same bottom line aims of the private sector in terms of profit maximisation but it is an over simplification to see the public sector as a pressure free environment. Internal markets and competitive funding have introduced business disciplines and there remains downward pressure on public expenditure and ever increasing statutory responsibilities. It is inevitable therefore that the pursuit of performance and value for money improvements will be linked to the e government agenda and the use of information technology (IT). Thaens et al 1997, identify three types of reengineering each with its own level of "ambition": Work Process Redesign Business Process Redesign Business Transformation Principles of Business Process Reengineering Create a Customer Focus Rethink Functions and Processes Challenge Organisational Principles Simplify and Discard Measure Performance Set Challenging Objectives Empower People Utilise IT Given the pressures on the public sector outlined in the introduction it is not surprising that such demands to behave more like the private sector have led to the adoption of popular techniques such as BPR. There are many other examples of such moves to adapt private sector techniques such as the use of benchmarking by local authorities and TQM in the health service. Whilst there is no doubt that the public sector needs to take a more businesslike view of its operations it is important to ensure that any initiative takes account of softer political, social and cultural issues alongside harder systems redesign issues. (Johnson and Scholes 2000)