Sharjah Municipality - Research Paper Example

? Strategic Plan Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Sharjah Municipality 3 Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats & Opportunities 3 Strengths 3 Weaknesses3 Opportunities 4 Threats 4 Vision Statement 4 Mission Statement 5 Corporate Values 5 Business Objectives 5 Key Strategies 5 Cost Reduction 5 More eService Model 6 More Channels for Payment 7 Creating an Active Team 7 Major Goals 8 Strategic Action Programs 8 References 9 Sharjah Municipality Sharjah Municipality is one of the largest administrative divisions in UAE. The administrative division was founded in the year of 1927. The municipality was one of the oldest foundations in the country. Modern system of governing was initiated in the year of 1971. The municipality focuses on improving the level of public utilities and services. Sharjah municipality works on betterment for all the people of Emirates (Sharjah Municipality, 2012). Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats & Opportunities Strengths The corporation has strong local presence. The municipality has developed expertise in the field of e-service. The corporation has strong presence in the society. They practice corporate social responsibility activity to enhance social image. They are a government organization and they can take help from the government to raise capital for implementing new technology. The administrative department is using a updated website to provide information to customers. The municipality is using e-payment system for value services. Weaknesses Work culture of the municipality needs modification. All the staffs work alone. Work culture of the municipality affects customer service level. Customers are not satisfied with the service level of the Sharjah Municipality. The municipality needs to implement state of art technology to improve customer service level. The administrative department does not use state of art technology like VoIP and data collocation technique to increase service efficiency. Opportunities Sharjah Municipality has the opportunity to increase service efficiency by using internet application like email marketing can help the company to design suitable communication strategy. The corporation can get real time feedback and queries from customer after implementing e-service. The corporation has the opportunity to improve service level by implementing E-procurement system. The municipality can increase efficiency of digital marketing by using data collocation techniques. Threats Threats in terms of changing consumer behaviour, implementation cost for new technology can impact the business process of the municipality. The municipality will implement ERP system to organise transactional data. The administrative department needs to invest huge amount of money to implement ERP system. Investing too much money on single technology can be identified as threat factor. VoIP technology integrated with 1Net MPLS-based IP VPN service can be used by the municipality to communicate with people of Emirates (Washburn, 2009). Vision Statement Drainage Department of the municipality provides premier service to increase the efficiency level of wastewater management facility. They are trying to create a healthy environment by improving wastewater management facility. They have planned to invest more than 150 Million Dirham to expand network of construction projects within next few years. They are planning to increase car parking facility in near future. The construction projects network will cover an area of 100,000 cubic meters. Mission Statement The municipality works on betterment for all the people of Emirates. They always try to provide quality service to customers. The corporation tries to maintain an honest service relationship with the people. The administrative department tries to design a sustainable social growth model for all the people of Emirates. Corporate Values The municipality tries to maintain healthy service relationship with all the people of Emirates. They give importance on achieving result in terms of providing quality service. They are trying to create an eco-friendly and clean environment for all the people. Business Objectives The municipality is trying to expand construction project network. They are aiming to be the leader in the municipality division of Emirates. They have done an agreement with Globe Constructors Ltd to expand construction projects network across Emirates. Key Strategies Cost Reduction The company can reduce the cost by means of using E-procurement. E-Procurement will help them to collect customer feedback. The company can integrate internet service with the procurement department. Software implementation will help them to collect customer feedback. The software can be operated via online platform. Processed customer queries can be channelized to municipality authority with the help of the software. Manual process of procurement is a high cost activity due to involvement of lots of intermediaries. The system will reduce level of intermediaries in the process. There will be only one system platform between people and municipality officials. The communication process will be simplified after implementing e-procurement. Cost of maintaining documents for each customer can be reduced by using e-procurement. The system is able to reduce cost by almost 65% in terms of collecting feedback and channelizing the feedback to officials (Croom and Johnston, 2003). The company can integrate enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with e-procurement process. Electronic data processing will be much easier after implementing automation program. ERP can be used as a data organizing system. ERP system can be implemented to process all transactional data and data related to financial forecasting. Online data management can be done by implementing ERP. More eService Model The company can launce all types of eservice for Smartphone users. Customer can access any type of e-service from mobile. Communication process between Municipality authority and customer will become simplified after implementing e-service. 24hours support facility on mobile phones will attract many people to use the service. The authority can use social networking site as a digital medium to offer service. Many people in emirates like to use Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other types of social networking sites. The Municipality can help people to lodge complains through social networking sites. The administrative division can send information brochure regarding new building, shopping centre location, parking lot location, road maps to general people through email. Email marketing can be an effective way to create awareness. More Channels for Payment The municipality using e-payment system for health related services. There is a scope to increase payment channels by introducing different payment options. The authority needs to develop a strong financial system to leverage the benefits of payment options. Accounting system of the corporation needs to be updated with respect to current financial trend. The municipality can introduce smart card system as a payment option. Paypal application can be another option. Online transaction can be done using debit cards or internet banking facility. The corporation can use internet transaction facility for all the services. The municipality is using e-payment system for health clinics. Creating an Active Team Concept of working in a group is required to improve staff productivity. Performance level of the staffs was poor in comparison with other municipality. The municipality requires designing an effective service life cycle model. Each department should be connected via intranet model. ERP implementation will help to integrate automation process with service life cycle. Generally customer lodges complains against the municipality in the complain section of the website. Service life cycle processes can be dissected in three parts like collecting customer queries, processing the data, delivering solution. The management of the municipality can use pareto technique to establish performance standard. Pareto technique can be explained in following manner. Normally 20% of employee contributes 80 % of poor performance. The municipality requires identifying the 20% segment of employee and needs to give them proper training. Service life cycle gap can be reduced by implementing brand internalization concept. Major Goals The administrative department will try to achieve staff productivity of more than 95% within next few years. The municipality will try to reduce cost of service maintenance by 30% within next two years. They will invest 150 million dirham to expand construction project network. They will build a parking lot facility for 250 cars. Strategic Action Programs Dr. Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qasimi is member of the supreme council for Sharjah municipality. Tahir Al Haj is the Director General of the municipality. They will supervise the work progress of construction project network. The project should be completed within 3 years. Chief technical officer will supervise the e-procurement system. Chief technical officer will try to complete the implementation phase within next nine months. The human resource department will design the brand internalization program. The human resource department will try to achieve 80% performance result in the first year. References Croom, S., and Johnston, R. 2003. E-service: Enhancing Internal Customer Service Through E-procurement. [pdf] Available at:< http://www.iei.liu.se/fek/frist/722g60/gruppernas_artiklar_och_presentationer_2007/1.111864/ArtikelE-serviceA4.pdf> [Accessed 23 August 2012]. Sharjah Municipality, 2012. About Us. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 23 August 2012]. Washburn, B. 2009. TelePacific Enhances 1Net IP VPNs with Integrated Voice and Additional CPE, Coverage and Features. [pdf] Available at:< http://www.telecomassociation.com/vendor/telepacific/images/CBS.PDF> [Accessed 28 August 2012]. Read More