strategy in action: a case from a public sector

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Strategy in Action:

A case from a Public Sector

Strategy Leaders Forum 13-17 April 2014 | Dubai, UAE.

Presented by Dr. Ali M. Al-Khouri

AGENDA

• Introduction: Why Strategy?

• Strategy at Emirates ID

• Strategy Approach at Emirates ID

• Concluding Remarks

AGENDA

• Introduction: Why Strategy?

• Strategy at Emirates ID

• Strategy Approach at Emirates ID

• Concluding Remarks

Introduction: Why Strategy

• Adopted for Businesses in early ‘60s

• Need for Survival in the face of tough Competition

• Driven by Profit Needs amidst rising costs

• Defined market boundaries

Why Strategy in Governments?

• Recent Phenomenon

• Changing Dynamics of Governance

Psychological construct !

• Typical assumption: “Everything will happen as per assumption”!

The Real World is somewhat Different!

• But the reality is always different!

Strategies Failure

of strategies fail!

Public vs. Private

Slower to change.. Bureaucratic ..

Adaptive to change.. Dynamic ..

PUBLIC SECTOR

PRIVATE SECTOR

Failure is more of a predominant

Todays World

• New terms and concepts

• Higher levels of complexity and fragmentation?

Need to understand the dynamics shaping today’s fuzzy world!

AGENDA

• Introduction: Why Strategy?

• Strategy at Emirates ID

• Strategy Approach at Emirates ID

• Concluding Remarks

How we Planned our 2007-2010 Strategy

Our Planned Strategy

2007-2010 This represented the first strategy cycle

for Emirates ID since its establishment in December 2004.

The strategy planning team, in general, assumed a rosy journey!

How we Executed our 2007-2010 Strategy

Our Planned Strategy

2007-2010

Executed Strategy

2007-2010 ? In 2009, we found that B did not even exist

(i.e., strategy objectives were unachievable)! So we needed another strategy!

How we Planned our 2010-2013 Strategy

Our Planned Strategy

2010-2013 New management team derived a carefully

developed strategic plan… different measures were put in place to ensure a

smooth journey this time ..

How we Executed our 2010-2013 Strategy

Our Planned Strategy

2010-2013

Executed Strategy

2010-2013

The journey once again had many ups and downs.. and was full of challenges, but with careful steps, B was achieved.

2010-2013 Strategy Results

92%

Budget: 5 folds Savings: > 500 million

Efficiency: 200% Effectiveness: 100%

IMP³rove assessment: above average for benchmarked class; close to global growth champions

Emirates ID achieved 97% of

set strategic targets

2010-2013 Strategy Results

Best Federal Organisation in Organizational Excellence

Leadership Award

Operations Award

G2G Partnered Project Award

UAE Government Excellence Program 2011 Emirates ID today is recognized as an

international benchmark for strategic management,

organizational development and for innovation in identity management systems

Our Learning Experience

Key control factors .. indeed, there was a prescription that we kept maintaining and

following during the design and execution of the strategy..

AGENDA

• Introduction: Why Strategy?

• Strategy at Emirates ID

• Strategy Approach at Emirates ID

• Concluding Remarks

Strategy Architecture and Components

The Inner Circle Ring

Represents key performance

dimensions

Innovation and Results Orientation

The two wings of the strategy..

Focusing on outcomes not on outputs

Enabling novel ideas that should

strengthen the Results wing

Strategy 2010-2013 Simple!

Alignment with the operational model

Business Operating Model

Performance Management Innovative systems to measure & monitor performance at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels.

Human Resources Development

We used this international framework to the train and develop our

staff, and improve their performance.

Business Process

• Core competencies (functions & capabilities)

• 80:20 • 3Es • Outsourcing

or achieved through partnerships

Financial Performance: Outsourcing Approach

Foundational Activities

Organizational Structure The development of the organizational structure in an innovative way, and focus on the element of knowledge ownership .

Policies and internal regulations Focused on the development of policies and procedures aligned with EFQM model in order to meet the cognitive orientation.

Differentiation

to develop organisational excellence

Quality Management: Standardisation

Aimed at: • Capturing

employees tacit technical knowledge.

• Improve Process standardization & automation.

• Improve Service Quality.

Knowledge Management: Organisational Learning

Support learning at individual, group, departmental and

organisational levels.

Knowledge Retention

Communication

Engaging Stakeholders: Periodical Meetings

• Emirates ID crafted a sub-strategy for social media.

• Today, Emirates ID has 16 different interactive channels

Leadership & Decision Making

Project Management: Portfolio Management

• Particular attention was given to how projects were managed. • A Project Office was formed to monitor projects that reported

to the Management Board, while the overall management of projects was left to the appropriate departments.

[improved] Decision Support Systems

Management teams spent sustainable amount of time in defining, tuning and re-tuning key performance dashboards. This supported the organisation to make daily decisions and address challenges as they arose.

Review & Monitoring: Weekly Management Meetings

A key factor behind the strategy success at Emirates ID can is represented in top

management’s commitment to make the strategy a ‘non-stopable transformational machine’!

Strategy Architecture and Components

AGENDA

• Introduction: Why Strategy?

• Strategy at Emirates ID

• Strategy Approach at Emirates ID

• Concluding Remarks

The Top 10 Reasons why strategies fail

1. Execution (Poor alignment – synchronization) 81 % 2. Resist the change 78% 3. Not communicated to all the people involved 77% 4. The plan is vague (poor communication) 76% 5. The goal isn’t compelling 72% 6. Lack of team Involvement 71% 7. Too many goals 70% 8. The goal isn’t clear 68% 9. The cultural implications are overlooked 67% 10. The correct metrics aren’t chosen 66%

Top 10 Reasons for Strategies Failure

Source: HRN- Europe 2009 Survey % of respondents assigning reason for failure

The Top 10 Reasons why strategies fail

1. Execution (Poor alignment – synchronization) 81 % 2. Resist the change 78% 3. Not communicated to all the people involved 77% 4. The plan is vague (poor communication) 76% 5. The goal isn’t compelling 72% 6. Lack of team Involvement 71% 7. Too many goals 70% 8. The goal isn’t clear 68% 9. The cultural implications are overlooked 67% 10. The correct metrics aren’t chosen 66%

Top 10 Reasons for Strategies Failure

Source: HRN- Europe 2009 Survey % of respondents assigning reason for failure

If we do a little zoom-in, we see that the majority of factors are related to how well we perform ‘communication’!

The Culture Machine

• Communication can play a magical role in shaping the culture machine and making it work the way we desire. Without proper communication, organisations become victims of their own strategies.

• Carefully planned communication mechanism would help avoiding cultures of ‘passing blames’ and ‘excuses’ and would support the organization focus on the solution instead!

The Role of Leadership

Sticking the pieces together

• The role of (enabled) leadership is critically critical!

• Leaders normally are those who have the holistic & overall picture of what organisations should achieve.

• Leaders are the ones expected to get the pieces together when ‘what next’ is blurred!

• By design, they are the one’s to blame, when things don’t go the way it was designed!

Where is your Attention?

80% of organisational work normally add only 20% of value to

citizens

Leaders are the ones who support their organisations to focus on what is important and contribute to results not just outputs!

Strategy linkage with Value Chain

• Value chain vs. supply chain

• gain-gain situation

Strategies need to be linked to the

overall organisation value chain

Learning to start from the END!

Strategy & Execution

Expectation Analysis Design Execution Delivery

Not easy, but it is a SKILL that is needed to be developed!

Interconnected Strategic Endeavor

There is no one-size-fits-all, nor a magic bullet

solution to ensure strategy success..

But take this: you don’t have a

choice!

strategies have proven to work well in wars

since the early days of mankind!

Successful strategies are just products of well designed and executed

work!

THANK YOU

Thank you

Dr. Ali M. Al-Khouri Director General | Emirates Identity Authority | UAE www.emiratesid.ae | ali.alkhouri@emiratesid.ae |

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@DrAliAlKhouri