The Impact of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme on Performance Improvement - Essay Example

THE IMPACT OF THE DUBAI GOVERNMENT EXCELLENCE PROGRAMME Student’s Name: Code + Course name Professor’s name University City, State Date Introduction The Dubai Government Excellence Programme (DGEP) has impacted positively on the governance of public services in the monarchy. To ascertain the efficient management of the services, the unit has the mandate of reporting to the Dubai Government’s cabinet. Following the initiation of DGEP in 1997, the programme has played a pivotal role in the promotion of excellence in the Dubai Government. Rewards sufficed to be the initial incentives that the programme utilised to motivate government entities to exhibit exceptional performance in the delivery of their services. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) formed the basis for the excellence model. The new model contained modified criteria that suited the needs of the government institutions in Dubai. The report targets to determine the extent to which the excellence programme has improved the performance of Dubai’s government sector. The Impact of the DGEP Programme on Performance Improvement It is appropriate to evaluate the performance of the programme regarding its initial objective of enhancing the competitiveness of public sector institutions in the economy. It is evident that the plan targeted to ascertain that governmental institutions attained international standards in their performance. To achieve this, the project contained a set of development initiatives and improvement practices that would guarantee the sustainability of the institutions (Kahlout 2010). The research questions encompassed What is the impact of the DGEP on the performance of the Dubai Government? What is the impact of the DGEP on customer satisfaction? Moreover, the programme included a guiding excellence model and performance assessment methods to evaluate the performance of the systems on a continuous basis. It is proper to opine that the successful implementation of the recommended practices of the programme depends on the associated influence on government’s policies, services, mind-sets and systems. The two primary objectives of the report encompass To determine the impact of the DGEP on the performance of the Dubai Government. To determine the impact of the DGEP on customer satisfaction. It is also worth noting that the programme has heightened competition among the individual government institutions. By so doing, the organisations have managed to adopt world-class performance standards. Enhancing customer satisfaction has sufficed to be the primary objective of the programme. Towards achieving the goal, the plan has recommended the most efficient Customer Relationship Management practices that the organisations ought to adopt in their quest to improve customer satisfaction. The management of customer relations encompasses customer feedback and communication, customer satisfaction surveys, customer complaints, and mystery shoppers. Therefore, it is evident that the programme has increased the necessity for internationalisation and competitive advantage on the part of the governmental institutions. Consequently, some of the government departments have decided to convert their legal structure and status from public to private so as to enhance their growth. The Dubai Ports is a perfect example of a government institution that has internationalised to have forty international ports. Departmental partnerships are also prevalent among Dubai governmental departments. The DGEP recommended cooperation between agencies as a strategy that would improve the performance of the units. Currently, there existed multiple innovation activities and increased the necessity for performance improvement among the institutions. The performance guidelines provided by the programme have enabled the institutions to assess the gap between their organisational practices and the recommended world-class practices. Therefore, the organisations strive to reduce and eliminate the performance gap. The availability of free consultancy services has also provided feedback reports to respond to the regular needs of the institutions about performance improvement. Subsequently, Dubai’s public institutions act as role models to other countries that intend to improve the performance of their public institutions. The most significant impact of DGEP on Dubai’s public institutions entail the transition from the traditional model of the public sector to the competitive corporate mode. The main advantages of the change include an increase in customer satisfaction and the services offered by the institutions to the public. Currently, it is mandatory for all governmental departments to participate in the programme. Embracing the plan is also recommended to the semi-governmental agencies. However, they have the freedom of deciding whether to adopt the development and service improvement practices or continue with the traditional practices. The strategic location of Dubai as a hub for tourists handles the influx of many tourists into the country. Therefore, customer satisfaction is one of the primary objectives of the country's governmental departments. Apparently, improved services and client satisfaction are benefits to both the citizens of the country and the foreigners. By 2010, it is evident that government departments served individuals (both native and foreign) in excess of nineteen million. Utilising immigration, transport, water, electricity, customs services is imperative for the individuals that live and visit the country. The DGEP has improved service delivery and customer satisfaction levels in the country as evidenced by the several reports that have measured the performance (Andries & Kanji 2004). The other reports that have acknowledged the significant contribution of the programme to the governmental departments include the employee satisfaction surveys and the customer satisfaction surveys. Moreover, opinion polls and mystery shopper reports have also noted the positive contribution of the programme to the country. The programme has impacted both on the Dubai Government and the users of its public services. According to the research conducted by the British Standards Institute, 88.9% of the representatives of the departments confirmed that the programme has catalysed the realisation of the department’s visions. Moreover, 85.70% of the departmental officials confirmed that the programme has impacted positively on the accomplishment of the objectives of the Strategic Plan of Dubai. Furthermore, 93.29% of the representatives revealed that the programme has enabled the departments to improve their results and performance. The figure below represents the results of the study. Figure 1: DGEP Impact on Dubai Government From the chart above, it is evident that DGEP improved the performance of the Dubai Government tremendously. The ability of the programme to provide a baseline for the attributes of a good government provided a foundation for the establishment of a proper governance structure in Dubai (Gargash et al. 2006). It concentrated on unifying the culture of the government, the attention and its efforts towards developing a world-class governance structure. The programme yielded improved performance in the entire governmental departments as exhibited by both the executives and the front-line employees of the institutions. For instance, the introduction of the open-door policy to define the administrative role in managing junior staff members reduced the gap between the executives and the front-line staff. Consequently, increased access to the management improved monitoring activities thus improving the performance and workplace efficiency of the employees in the departments. The programme also recommended decentralisation and delegation of the activities of the top managers to the junior employees. As a matter of fact, governmental units in Dubai adopted the recommendation in the quest to improve organisational performance. Delegation of duties allows the easy and faster carrying out of certain activities thus enabling senior executives of the departments to concentrate on making strategic decisions. Strategy execution also suffices to be the other area that realised the impact of the programme. Regarding the recommended guidelines, governmental departments review the implementation exercise on a regular basis. The human resource development also turned out to be the other pertinent area of the strategic changes proposed by the programme. Some of the reformations included recommending the recruitment of nationals to occupy senior governmental positions. Moreover, the introduction of employee suggestion schemes allowed employees to provide their opinions regarding the business. The eventual result of the employee suggestion systems was an increase in the level of employee satisfaction that motivate the workforce thus yielding improved organisational performance (Gargash et al. 2006). At the end, increased employee motivation resulted in the provision of exceptional customer services thus producing customer satisfaction. The programme also heightened the awareness of the employees regarding customer needs. Apparently, the provision of excellent customer services that meet the individual needs of the customers depends on the ability of the service providers to understand the exact customer needs. Therefore, increased awareness of customer needs prevails in the departments thereby enabling the employees to devise appropriate measures of meeting the needs. The other merit of understanding customer needs entails anticipating and fulfilling the needs before the users present the requests to the departments. The programme resulted in customer-focused mindsets of the employees of the government institutions thus guaranteeing their ability to address customer needs effectively. Introducing suggestion and complaint schemes also endeavoured to enable the workers to understand customer needs. It is evident that technology has formed a pivotal component in the modern business revolutions. The programme recommended the utility of technology in the management of all the processes within the departments. Therefore, governmental institutions have undergone technological revolutions in the sector. Moreover, the use of technology to developing customer service delivery interfaces has improved the delivery of customer services in the organisations. It has enabled the employees to serve more customers using the least time possible as opposed to the traditional system where customers spent long hours queueing. The other merit associated with using technology entails the delivery of quality services to customers using the latest customer service delivery IT solutions (Saad & Afifi 2015). Following the introduction of the first performance management systems in 2003 by the programme, government departments in Dubai have embraced performance management as a strategy for evaluating their performance regarding the anticipated outcomes. At the launch of the system, the programme recommended a centralised system management process. However, the tremendous contribution of the system towards achieving the desired objectives in the departments has compelled the agencies to implement the system. The principal merit that the agencies have realised from the system entails its contribution to the continuous improvement of the performance of the departments. Following the positive appraisals that the DGEP programme received from the departments and other governments in the Arab World, it stands out as a comprehensive performance management tool. Subsequently, the plan improves the performance of its users (Gargash et al. 2006). The propensity of government departments to utilise the programme emanates from the necessity to act as the pioneer of the programme in the country. There exist several projects whose emergence counts on the DGEP programme. The introduction of Tandem Lift Cranes in Dubai Ports World (DPW) suffices for a good example of the projects catalysed by the programme. The government institution stood out as the first organisation that had introduced the cranes in the whole world. It is evident that the necessity for speedy port operations compelled the company to reduce the time taken to load and offload cargo respectively in preparation for its transportation to other destinations. It is evident that the change emanated from the quest to meet the ‘sea to the air in 10 minutes’ vision stated by the government (Gargash et al. 2006). Other mega projects that enhanced service delivery in the company encompass infrastructure development and port expansion that targeted to increase the amount of cargo that the port could handle per unit time. The establishment of Tamkeen Organisation to train visually impaired individuals is the other case of the influence of the programme. The organisation targeted to empower visually impaired UAE residents and nationals with vocational and practical skills. By so doing, the trained individuals could use the skills in the workforce to become socially and economically independent people. Finally, the E-Gate Project launched by the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department guaranteed fast access of passengers through electronic gates Dubai International Airport’s Immigration Department. The graph below shows the impact of the programme on customer satisfaction. The chart reveals that customer satisfaction has exhibited positive performance since the inception of the programme. Therefore, DGEP suffices to be the principal contributing factor to the ever-rising culture of service quality and excellence presented by the governmental departments in Dubai (Ahrens 2013). It suffices to be the first excellent programme initiated and implemented by the government to improve the delivery of customer services among governmental departments in the quest for competitive advantage and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the research indicated that GDEP had the greatest impact on the improvement of the services of the governmental departments. The chart displays consolidated results of the effect of GDEP on governmental units as obtained from mystery shopper surveys, opinion polls and customer satisfaction surveys. Figure 2: DGEP Impact on customer satisfaction Conclusion The GDEP programme has improved the performance of the government departments in Dubai. The fact that Dubai is a hub for tourists in the UAE necessitates exceptional customer services in the delivery of critical services. Both native and foreign Dubai residents utilise transport, immigration, water, customs and electricity services provided by government departments. The programme has heightened employee awareness on customer requirements so as to determine the effective ways of meeting the needs. Moreover, the Dubai Government has strived to implement the GDEP recommendations so as to improve the competitiveness of the governmental institutions in the provision of essential customer services (Dubai Customs 2011). As a result, ever since the inception of the excellence programme, government departments have witnessed a continuous improvement in customer satisfaction levels. Reference List Ahrens, T 2013, ‘Assembling the Dubai Government Excellence Program: A motivational approach to improving public service governance in a monarchical context’, International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 26, no. 7, pp. 576-592. Andries, G Kanji, G P 2004, ‘Performance Measurement with a difference’, Total Transformation Thinking of Modern Leadership, Dubai. Dubai Customs 2011, ‘Dubai Customs Sustainability Report 2011’, Government of Dubai. El Kahlout, Z 2010, ‘Dubai government excellence program: a success story’, Middle East, vol. 1, no. 3. Gargash, S, Dawood, W, Mutawa, F A, Miran, A, Ali, H M & Ramadan, M 2006, ‘The Impact of DGEP on Government Sector in Dubai’. Saad, S M & Al Afifi, M N 2015, ‘An Empirical Test and Validation of Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) using ABCD Model Analysis’, Advances in Business and Economic Development. Read More