New Normalcy for Sri Lanka: Digitally Transformed Institutions with Re-engineered Processes

By Mr Ahamed Nishadh (Tech for Development Lead) and Ms Bhagya Maheshi (Data Scientist) of Citra Social Innovation Lab

Many years ago, there was a priest in a temple who used to wake up in the early hours of the morning and prepare offerings for the Gods every day. One day, upon returning from his morning bath before the rituals, he found all his offerings destroyed by his pet cat. Following this incident, the priest made it a point to tie up the cat each time he left for his morning bath and let him loose once he returned. Time went by and the priest passed away, leaving his son to take his place. Following his father’s footsteps, the new priest made sure the cat was tied before his morning bath, as he had seen his father do. One day, the cat died and the priest who was eager to keep the ritual going, went in search of a cat to replace the one before. Finding an identical-looking cat in the village, he returned to the temple with the new cat and continued the ritual. This daily act of tying up the cat before morning offerings was carried on from this priest to the next and continued for generations that followed with unquestioned obedience.

Throughout our lives, we all may have heard different versions of this tale, and sometimes even find ourselves actioning such behaviour in simple daily activities, such as following a heritage family recipe passed down from generation to generation with utmost consistency. It is human nature to follow the footsteps of our predecessors without questioning the underlying motives or relevancy to the present context, as seen through the moral of the story of the priest and the cat.

Similarly, government processes in place in many institutions are those that have been around for years on end and subject to minimum change. Given that there is hardly any objection against such processes, many officials are even unaware of the grounds behind such systems. When questioned on the relevance of certain aspects, the common response received is “that’s the way it is”, bringing to light the many grey areas that exist in the system. Due to this and other reasons, not only has there been no revision in the current service delivery lines of the Sri Lankan Public Sector, but they have also been widely criticized for their inefficiencies.

Further heightening the intensity of the issue, the introduction of digitization into government set-ups has often been carried out in an ad-hoc manner, lacking proper organization and stability. In addition, there exists a common misconception among public sector officials that introducing digital technologies into government service workflows is a threat to job security and is therefore approached with a negative attitude. Moreover, maintaining a hotline, a trilingual website and facilitating a mobile app that’s hardly subject to updates, using computers, laptops and other electronic machines in state offices are justified as being sufficiently ‘digital’. However, digital transformation itself reaches far beyond these parameters.

Before we cover the role of digital transformation in the Sri Lankan public sector, let’s clear our ground on the theory behind business process re-engineering and digital transformation.

What is Business Process Re-engineering?

There are a number of interpretations of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) that have been put forward. One such interpretation is the Hammer and Champy (1993) definition that has been widely accepted. It identifies BPR as “a systematic starting over and reinventing the way a firm or business process gets its work done to better support an organization’s mission and reduce costs of operations. It is a fundamental re-thinking & radical re-design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as cost, service, and speed.”

BPR is a concept that is often misunderstood with its full potential underestimated in the process of institutional transformations in Sri Lanka. Most believe it is a comprehensive systems analysis to identify bottlenecks in the existing system and have them fixed. However, BPR reaches far beyond this — it will also initiate a systems change with a fresh design for a new system, using the knowledge it acquires. A BPR will transform existing business processes in a way that instils a proper change management strategy and advocacy plan to succeed.

In actualizing a BPR, Hammer and Champy specify a set of principles that an organization should follow. They are:

1. Organising work around outcomes, not tasks
2. Identifying all processes in an organization and prioritising them to re-design urgency
3. Incorporating information processing work into real work that produces information
4. Treating geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized
5. Linking parallel activities in the workflow instead of only integrating their results
6. Placing the decision point where the work is performed and building control into the process
7. Capturing information once, at the source

Although BPR has been viewed as a very technical concept within industrial setups, its applicability to public service is crucial. Building on the definition of BPR, Gunawardana and Dharmasiri (2011) identify a new term as ‘Government Process Re-engineering’ (GPR) and defined it as: “The fundamental re-thinking and radical re-design of government processes to deliver dramatic improvements in quality of service and timely delivery at lower cost structures, while ensuring that the needs and aspirations of every citizen for national development, transparency, equality and safety are achieved.”

According to this definition, the primary focus of GPR is to provide quality, reliable, and efficient services to citizens through transparent and accountable systems that are equal and safe to access by all. In the present context, 4 key changes have occurred within Sri Lankan society to drive the requirement to conduct a GPR. They are:

1. Rapid changes in technological space
2. Increased adoption of technology by society in general
3. Reduced dependency on physical documents or “hard-copies”
4. Less physical contact and increased use of remote services, as a result of the pandemic

Evidently, there needs to be a paradigm shift to digitally transform institutions and equip them with the right infrastructure, skills and mindsets.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital Transformation is probably one of the most misunderstood terms in the technological sphere in Sri Lanka, especially within the public sector.

Digital Transformation is the process of integrating digital technologies into business processes. But how do we distinguish what qualifies as successful digital transformation? Simply maintaining a website for an organization does not fulfil the concept of digital transformation and cannot begin to compare with the endless opportunities it brings forth. Creating a portal for an employee to upload documents — only to be printed again and processed manually from the other end also does not qualify as digital transformation. However, if there is a portal through which customers can submit documents, have them processed digitally (on computers, with a digital workflow, etc.) and receive a response in a digital format, that is digital transformation.

Although digital transformation comes with its many opportunities and advantages, what many who are involved in it fail to understand is that it cannot happen overnight, within a week or even a month. As every good thing takes time, so does digital transformation. If adequate time is not allocated for transformation to take place smoothly, you are likely to end up with a half-baked solution which would result in eventual failure. This is especially true in the present Sri Lankan context as many of our business processes in the public sector have been carried out manually on paper and in books for the last few decades. There have been several isolated attempts to digitize much of this “data”, but such efforts have either failed or come to a halt midway due to varying reasons such as lack of funding, lack of human resources, and change in priorities of the organization. Furthermore, it is pointless to digitize one system when it is part of a larger manual system that cannot accommodate digitization.

Accordingly, when introducing digital transformation into the public sector in Sri Lanka, a comprehensive BPR or GPR must be done. Such a process will help the organization drastically by identifying all the stakeholders, the business processes currently in effect, how they can be transformed, what needs to be done for such processes to be transformed, etc.

Where do BPR/GPR and Digital Transformation stand in Sri Lanka?

BPR/GPR and Digital Transformation are not novel concepts for Sri Lanka; in fact, many government institutions have successfully conducted a BPR/GPR study, implemented a system and or are yet in the process of implementing it. These institutions are:

• Department of Motor Traffic — Issuance of Driving License (e-DL 2.0). Registration of Motor Vehicles (e-Motoring)
• Department of Pensions — Gratuity and Monthly Pension Payments, Monthly W&OP Payments
• Department of Registration of Persons — Issue of National ID Card
• Commissioner General of Samurdhi — Selection & Issue of Samurdhi Benefits
• Ministry of Lands — Issue of Title Certificate
• Local Government Authority — Issue of Building Permits
• Ministry of Social Services — Select Disadvantaged Persons for Benefits
• Ministry of Finance — Social Safety Nets Project
• External Resources Department of the Ministry of Finance
• Consular Division of Ministry of Foreign Affairs — Consular Services
• Ministry of Public Management Reforms/Public Service Commission (PSC) — National Government Human Resource Management
• Department of Registrar of Companies — e-ROC Project
• Department of Valuation — e-Valuation Project

A majority of the above initiatives have been successfully implemented, while some others are temporarily on hold due to systematic issues. Taking a further look into these defects, the below were identified as root causes:

• Lack of understanding and interest from political and administrative leadership
• Resistance to change and transformation from service officials to accept newly proposed systems
• Improving productivity of government services is perceived as a result of increasing human resources, rather than improving processes
• Lack of funding to implement proposed systems
• Lack of technology, infrastructure and skills within the government system to implement proposed systems
• Risks and complications owing to corruption and bribery within institutions

Why does Sri Lanka need digitally transformed institutions with re-engineered processes?

The current economic crisis in the country has brought to light many loopholes in the system, forcing citizens to demand transparency and accountability in all government processes, further emphasising the need for a thorough transition into the digital spectrum, now more than ever. To incorporate these features into existing processes, a systemic study of the business processes presently in place is mandatory to identify where duplication of data may have occurred, precisely what data is being collected and when, what difficulties stakeholders face when manoeuvring the system, and what happens at the eco-system level. By conducting a comprehensive study of these key areas and more within the existing system, new business processes can then be freshly designed on a clean sheet.

With these innovative solutions in place:

• Waiting time to obtain services from government offices will reduce significantly
• Procedures, processes and interpretations will be common across all government institutions
• Data collection will be robust and standardized, eliminating data duplicates in the system
• Integrated and interoperable systems can be enabled easily
• Institutions will be more responsive
• Institutions will be able to better utilize their human resources
• The policies can be fed with better data

However, to ensure the benefits of BPR/GPR and Digital Transformation are achieved, employees should approach the transition with open mindsets, with eagerness to make maximum use of and harness the power of technology, a willingness to learn, adapt and be agile, and to make room for the necessary technical, financial and human resources to be put in place effectively. Although this intervention may be viewed as irrelevant within the present social context, if the ultimate shared goal within society is to build and facilitate a more sustainable future, then there needs to be an immediate joint effort among institutions to begin work together on BPR/GPR and Digital Transformation initiatives and have them implemented in institutions as part of their short and long-term plans.

References

Gunawardena, H., 2015. Government Sector Re-alignment in Sri Lanka and the Role of Visionary Leadership & Process Re-engineering. Sri Lanka Journal of Development Administration, 5.

Hammer, M. and Champy, J., 1993. Business process reengineering. London: Nicholas Brealey, 444(10), pp.730–755.

Citra 2.0 is Sri Lanka’s pioneer Social Innovation Facility that offers human-centred design and systemic design thinking approaches to solve complex development problems. Together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka, Citra Lab focuses on learning and adopting innovative tools in its work to build solutions to the challenges faced by the general public.