The Strategic Management Plan of Abu Dhabi Police Department - Research Paper Example

The Strategic Management Plan of Abu Dhabi Police Department Introduction By holding the maintenance of security and stability as its main goal, the Abu Dhabi Police General Headquarters has framed its strategic initiatives for improving its performance. The responsibility for improving the extent to which it meets strategic priorities and improves its performance has been entrusted with the Strategic Management and Performance Improvement Department, which reports directly to the Commander General of Abu Dhabi Police. Unlike many other police forces throughout the world, the aim of Abu Dhabi Police does not stop with reducing crime. The Department embarks upon a much deeper concept of performance, which is more visionary in nature – The Department aims to transform its policemen from conventional watchers and guardians into comprehensive employees. This paper will demonstrate Strategic Quality Management (SQM) theory as it applies to this tt transformation and its key principles, which include leadership and customer focus. Literature Review: Current Issues Surrounding Strategic Quality Management Most books that discuss Total Quality Management (TQM) focus on for-profit organisations in which the bottom line is growing the business. These books generally present the concepts of efficiency and competitiveness as underlying principles in TQM, but in practice, TQM is actually Strategic Quality Management, and its focus is on customer value. According to Ross (1999), the goal of TQM is to obtain customer satisfaction. In modern society, every organisation that aims to provide quality products or services needs to satisfy customers, so it is essential that everything about quality product management and services be planned prior to implementing any strategy. Strategic planning is one of the most important tools in TQM, according to Doherty et al. (1995), who also believes that strategic planning needs to be properly conducted prior to implementing SQM, the focus of which is customer value. Chapman and Hall (1991) outlined six key concepts of TQM: customers, never-ending improvement, control of business processes, upstream preventive management, ongoing preventive action, and leadership and teamwork. Customers can be classified into two categories – internal and external – where internal customers are the employees or manpower working for the company, and external customers are all other stakeholders, not just those who buy the company’s product or service. Another point to be considered in SQM is, of course, quality. Excellence is a common goal among organisations looking to be on top of their competition. In this case, ‘excellence’ means quality in terms of meeting requirements, ensuring reliability, and understanding customer needs (Oakland, 2003). Today, virtually every organisation has to survive tough competition, so private and for-profit organisations alike demand SQM. Even nations compete for economic stability, fuelled by the onset of globalisation, where the “local market” has expanded to include the entire world. Setting goals related to quality, according to Ross (1999), is directly related to foreign competition and national trade deficits. Another point to be considered in SQM is how the quality system will fit into a specific organisation. According to Pekar (1995), the two most important elements of quality systems are the quality manual and the organisation’s standard operating procedures. All of these elements of quality contribute to obtaining the bottom line: customer satisfaction and achievement of corporate goals and vision. TQM is generally accepted as generating a sustainable competitive advantage, even if there is little theory to support this claim (Reed et al., 2000). As Linderman et al. (2004) explained, many leaders who believe in the idea of quality have considered the role of knowledge in quality management practices. Yeung and Chan (1998) reviewed the belief of many authors that using a progressive approach to improve quality management would lead to efficient internal operations, superior marketing and financial performance, and would satisfy external customers and for-profit organizations; however, many companies have found that they improved customer satisfaction by ensuring efficient internal operations and that the development of a Quality Management System resulted in market growth and financial gains. In their study of quality management from the perspective of R&D, Jayawarna & Holt (2009) concluded that the quality systems in R&D environments are most effective when they provide an organisational environment that encourages individuals to participate with the firm’s strategic concerns. Masterson and Taylor (1996), on the other hand, proposed that TQM and performance appraisal may be complementary in the sense that both add value to each other, as well as to the entire organisation. Goldsmith (1996) found that strategic management works best when one understands it as a way to learn, as opposed to a remedy or prescription. This idea specifically addresses the adoption and transferability issues related to SQM in which studying it can gain competence in this field. Studying these advanced issues in the field of SQM is a way to gain competence in its field. The Strategic Management Plan of Abu Dhabi Police Department Unlike some of the other organisations that have been studied in the literature, the Abu Dhabi Police Department (ADP) relies solely on its strategic management plan as its basic approach to the concept of SQM. The ADP does not yet have advanced ideas related to SQM, such as those discussed above. The ADP is merely guided by the basic idea of its management plan but it has to learn more about quality management issues. The ADP is a department of the Abu Dhabi government, which has delineated the general directorate of the ADP (Abu Dhabi Government, 2010) as the strategic plan of the ADP from 2008 to 2012. The ADP’s vision is “to be the most operationally effective police force possible in one of the safest countries in the world.” The vision focuses on the concept of “effective police operation”, which is synonymous with efficiency and competitiveness, both of which are integral parts of TQM. The ADP’s mission statement is “to bring about a safer society, to maintain stability, to reduce crime and contribute to the delivery of justice in a way which secures and maintains public confidence.” Since the ADP’s main priority is to satisfy the needs of its citizens, residents and visitors to the Islamic territory of Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Government, 2010), the ADP welcomes suggestions and complaints from its own people as well as those from other countries in order to expand the concept of “safety” to all. Not only are the vision and mission of ADP publicly available, but it also shares its core values. The following are underlying values of ADP (General Headquarters of Abu Dhabi Police, 2008): • Maintaining integrity at the highest levels at all times involving concerns for human rights. • Delivering fair and courteous services to the community. • Recognizing and valuing individual and corporate achievements through teamwork and innovation. • Recognizing that effective communication with staffs and stakeholders is of utmost importance to the achievement of its objectives. • Pursuing excellence in all it does and ensuring its activities are effective, efficient and measurable. The ADP’s directorate is a TQM tool because it covers the department’s entire strategic plan for the country from 2008 to 2012. The directorate thereby makes the ADP one with the government in its efforts to promote the country as one of the world’s most competitive countries through maintaining a high rating for peace and order. It is in this regard that the concept of TQM would make sense in achieving a competitive level. Although it was initially intended to be applied to an individual department within a given country in the case of ADP, TQM can be successfully implemented to work efficiently for the entire country as a whole. This concept is supported by the fact that Abu Dhabi as a highly business-oriented place that would never invest in something that would not lead to future benefits. Integration of the TQM concept into ADP’s strategic plan To make the strategic plan successful , the ADP must improve in several important areas (Absal, 2008). • Controlling crime • Maximizing the staff through the use of best practices, in which qualified staff are hired and a plan is put in place to increase each staff member’s efficiency • Obtaining high levels of community confidence in ADP • Ensuring the constant security of Abu Dhabi • Making roads safer by developing structural bodies and action plans to reduce casualties • Giving functional support, along with providing policing operations • Expediting decisions through delegation of financial and administrative powers so as to ensure the technical efficiency of the plan in terms of its ability to be assessed as needed. Controlling crime means limiting or restraining crime, which is essential to establishing the strategic plan for the ADP and to the preventive management system that the ADP has to initiate. Preventive management is part of the key concepts in TQM. Another important concept is the development of competent staff based on an international standard of best practices. This means that the ADP must adhere to international standards as part of its definition of excellence. High levels of community confidence in ADP result from the ADP’s overall performance. Confidence from the community cannot be obtained without the proper implementation of the department’s strategic management plan through constant evaluation and public feedback. One of the most important concepts in TQM is that of customer feedback; evaluation is essential in assessing what needs to be done. Ensuring the constant security of Abu Dhabi is part of ADP’s preventive management as it must prevent the occurrence of more crimes and other related incidents in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Making the roads safer by developing structural barriers and action plans to reduce casualties is a specific strategy of ADP’s ongoing preventive action. Providing functional support as well as policing operations is an ongoing consideration of ADP’s leadership and teamwork, as is the expedition of decisions through delegation of financial and administrative powers. This is done to ensure the technical efficiency of the plan and that it can be assessed as needed. It is clear that, in order for the strategic plan of ADP to succeed, the general public needs to send clear feedback to facilitate the improvement of the plan’s implementation. Thus, an honest evaluation from the general public will be expected to lead to substantial changes and clear directions for the ADP’s strategic plan. In order to fulfill its functions, ADP sees the need to construct a TQM approach. Thus, it has to come up with a strategic plan to be implemented and evaluated on the basis of satisfaction from the general public. However, along the way, it is clear enough that the ADP needs to create its own standards and measure their effectiveness in terms of feedback from the public. The integration of the TQM concept into ADP’s strategic plan can actually be elaborated further into three general sections as follows. Essential Organizational Qualities for SQM I. Ethical Values Based on its vision and mission, the Department has developed six strategic priorities, the achievement of which will be more than supported by the implementation of TQM. The values of the General Directorate of Abu Dhabi Police have been based on the qualities of integrity, honesty and respect for human rights. The department has issued a notification regarding their work, function and accountability, which reads: The work can be summed up as being a system based on the "Problem Resolution" task the local police face in their work with accountability for performance related to their patrol activities. The departments and sections in the General Directorate, in parallel with the domestic activity on the ground, provide specialized services and advice. (Directorate, 2009) II. Integrity The move by the ADP department to recruit foreigners to work as community officers can be considered a move of integrity. The scheme has been drafted to attract non-Emirate officers with appropriate background to join the community-policing team. The first phase of recruitment will be done from the English-speaking countries to help deal with issues that happen within the English-speaking communities. There are proposals to extend this scheme to officers who speak other languages also. Even though the people recruited under this scheme will not become full police officers, they will be designated “community support officers”. They will patrol with regular officers and deal mostly with anti-social behavior, such as vandalism, dangerous driving and crime prevention (Hassan, 2009). III. Communication With the view that the all the communication, command, control and computer applications are merged into one integrated solution, the ADP department has installed an Emergency Services Integrated Communication and Control System, which is the best in the world, providing the department a demand resolution and incident management solution. This solution provides both officers and the public with a resilient and flexible communications system. With the latest communication, system officers can receive information of incidents from the Control Room. Based on that information, they can access their own in-house databases. This enables them to conduct vehicle and traffic enquiries while on patrol. TQM requires employee empowerment, which implies speedy decision-making. This need for the officers to make decisions in the field, which is an important part of policing, both in terms of speed of incident resolution and their own job satisfaction, has been met by the remote access to the databases. “Remote access to these databases means that officers now have the most up-to-date information at their fingertips when and where they need it” (Abu Dhabi Police, 2008). The Key Principles of SQM Leadership and Constancy of Purpose Under the directives of His Highness Lt. Gen. Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Minister of Interior, the strategic initiative of using the latest technological advancement in the field of communication has been adopted for an effective and efficient service available to the public round the clock. “This shows the keenness of the leadership to assure the safety and security of the people and provide them with a high quality of service” (Abu Dhabi Police, 2008). The leadership qualities exhibited by the Minister of the Interior are being echoed by all senior officers of the ADP, which provides the basis for the implementation of the TQM approach. The organization’s leaders are open to adopting any innovative tools, techniques and approaches for improving the quality of public service. Customer Focus The element of customer focus is a major requirement for implementing a successful TQM program. TQM has a focus on both internal and external customers. The importance of accountability has been developed as part of the responsibilities of the Department towards its customers, represented by public. SQM is concerned with measuring, managing and reporting on this accountability, and leads to the active participation of the personnel in the department on public service improvement processes. When it comes to the question of TQM, customers are considered as more than individuals who depend on the department for services. Even HR personnel are considered internal customers of the department for a number of day-to-day processes, including providing satisfactory working conditions to the police officers and many other such routines. In turn, many officers of different ranks become customers of the HR department for information that will facilitate the recognition of the services of various support processes by personnel at various levels. Similarly, every department within the ADP becomes a supplier of the public. In a TQM environment, the public are considered a special class of customers as they are the ones ultimately receiving the services or products of the department. High Customer Satisfaction Rate The ADP’s external customers are the people of the country, government, and public in general. The ADP staff is comprised of government-employed people, and the government is responsible for their pay. Thus, the government alone has the legal position to evaluate the ADP’s staff in terms of their success in satisfying the public’s needs. Consequently, the government must set measurable standards in the pursuit of quality. The ADP’s standards can be seen in its mission statement and its general strategic plan from 2008 to 2012. The plan is called ‘Progressive Police for a Modern City’ or the ‘Abu Dhabi Police Strategic Plan from 2008 to 2012’. This new progressive development plan lists six priorities to be worked out within five years. The government was able to formulate concrete courses of action prior to its implementation, spearheaded by its police officers with the guidance and cooperation of international experts. As part of its achievement of the entire plan, the ADP is looking forward to fulfilling its priorities and views its partnerships with all parties involved as important factors in achieving its strategic goals. The ADP is aware that its plan cannot be successfully implemented without the contribution of its stakeholders, so any plan must be designed with the involvement of everyone concerned in mind. The current challenge is how to motivate everyone concerned to cooperate and formulate initiatives and strategic management as important tools in achieving its goals. The ADP clearly wants full integration with the Abu Dhabi government’s strategy and political agenda, which is aligned with the general strategy of the UAE Federal government, to ensure that it can fulfill its responsibilities to the Emirati, residents, visitors, and service and security agencies. It is also clear from ADP’s strategy that it has established the vision, mission and values of the department in order to become the “most operationally effective police force in one of the safest countries in the world.” The plan is especially formulated to modernise the ADP and improve its function and role in the society; the goal is to become known as the world’s best in providing police services. According to Al Nuaimi, ADP officer, The continuous process of modernisation and developing of Abu Dhabi Police, motivated by the wisdom and insight of the leadership of the UAE, is aimed at transforming the capital into an important economical regional power. The role of the police has been of great significance during the past decades in promoting this ambition (Absal, 2008). The ADP’s mission statement is strongly linked to this idea. First, the ADP stated that its “purpose is to bring a safer society.” “Safer society” is a standard that suggests an environment where it is safe to live. Safety is important partly because investors will be less likely to invest in a country with unstable peace and order; to run smoothly and achieve corporate goals, businesses need a peaceful setting. If more investors invest in a country, there will be more opportunities for everyone to enjoy a healthy economy. Thus, in order for ADP to achieve success in its TQM, it must ensure that its standards all boil down to quality service for its people and the general public. Obtaining a “safer society” will mean maintaining stability, reducing crime and contributing to the delivery of justice by securing and maintaining public confidence. Therefore, it is clear from ADP’s mission statement that the evaluation of its output starts from the public’s general feedback concerning public satisfaction from the external customers’ perspective. Since the ADP’s mission statement specifically refers to a “safer society”, it highlights safety as the general public’s requirement that the ADP must fulfill. Meeting Public Expectations “In its efforts to meet or even exceed the expectations of the general public, the ADP has shown the keenness of the leadership to assure the safety and security of the people and provide them with a high quality of service” (APD Communications Ltd., 2008). ADP has initiated actions to establish best practices for police communications as part of its responsibility in planning security programs and supervising tasks and duties of police stations (APD Communications Ltd., 2008). Consequently, the ADP has undertaken a state-of-the-art demand resolution and incident management solution using a resilient and flexible system. Other TQM initiatives have also been successful. In March 2010, the Criminal Investigation Department of the ADP reported that it had received reports about fraudulent emails that were targeting bank accounts by asking individuals for sensitive information. The Director General of the Electronic Crime Department, Captain Omar Al-Tunaiji, responded by warning the public not to respond to such emails and to report anything suspicious immediately (Sambidge, 2010) as a preventive management approach. In the same month, Abu Dhabi’s female police officers were honoured on International Women’s Day (Hassan, 2010) for their work in criminal investigations, search and rescue operations and handling situations that were difficult for males to handle, such as warning off female beggars on the street. Males as usual are actually not in line with this task due to some cultural-related concerns. ADP’s point in giving this honour was to motivate the staff by recognizing their efforts and the importance of their functions, and thereby improve performance on ADP’s strategic plans. Since the ADP depends on human resources, motivating its manpower is one of the best ways it can implement its strategic plans. In pursuit of its goal of exceeding public expectations, the ADP aimed to cut crime by 5% over five years (Absal, 2008). In addition, plans and actions were formulated to realize a 20% reduction in road accidents, which often cause serious injuries or fatalities. This plan was actually an integral part of the ADP’s 5-year strategy for 2008 to 2012. According to the Minister of the Interior, Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Zayed Al Nahyan: Our strategy is focused on the control of crime by prevention, control of its rates and eradication of its impact, to maintain general safety and security, make the roads safer and establish mutual trust between the public and police force as well as ensuring optimised use of human resources by adopting the best international practices without ignoring the provision of all operational support to the police operations. (Absal, 2008) Although many people can attest that the UAE and Abu Dhabi are safe, it is still necessary to anticipate new threats that may arise as the city continues growing (Absal, 2008). In pursuit of this type of preventive management, the ADP has prioritised investigations of high-profile crimes. The ADP is also focusing on reaching out to the community to learn how the department as a whole has been doing and to evaluate which of its goals it has obtained fully, which partially, and what aspects of its strategic plan must still be obtained. An ADP survey of the public found a high satisfaction level—up to 90%—with the Department. The most important reason of the survey is the consideration of priorities under the strategic plan, so the survey measures its performance in terms of achieving its goals. Conclusion The ADP’s strategic plan plays an important role in Abu Dhabi’s plight to achieve global competency in terms of its economic achievement at the international level. Thus, TQM is being used by ADP as a modern strategic management approach to help the nation gain an economic advantage; however, ADP still needs more advanced ideas and a higher calibre of competency in moving its SQM system forward. It must still encourage greater participation among the general public in feedback, and implement an effective feedback management system. SQM is important because it can help organisations obtain their goals in a systematic way; however, to implement it successfully, one must understand it fully and have experience with it as well as competency. References Absal, R. (2008). Abu Dhabi Police unveil ambitious proposal to cut crime. Retrieved March 19th, 2010, from http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/crime/abu-dhabi-police-unveil-ambitious-proposal-to-cut-crime. Abu Dhabi Government. (2010). ‘General Directorate of Abu Dhabi Police’ Retrieved March 19th, 2010, from http://www.abudhabi.ae/egovPoolPortal_WAR/appmanager/ ADeGP/Citizen?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=p_citizen_departments&did=13968〈=en (Accessed 2 April 2010). APD Communications Ltd. (2008). Abu Dhabi Police: Case Study. Retrieved March 19th, 2010, from http://www.apdcomms.com/assets/pdf/APDcasestudy-abu-dhabi-police.pdf. 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