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Back-Office Transformation: Concepts, Trends, and Guidelines for Government Leaders
The symposium, entitled "Back-Office Transformation: Concepts, Trends, and Guidelines for Government Leaders", was facilitated by Jerry Mechling, Director of the e-Government Executive Education Project at Harvard University, and focused on how back-office, largely administrative work can be transformed: not merely improved, but improved dramatically and in ways that may significantly change how the work is organized. As a starting point for the symposium discussion, the assumption was presented that while much of the work of government is conducted in real-time with clients, other activities take place in the "back office," away from public view.
In analyzing back-office problems, the symposium explored three basic topics:
Concepts: What are the major elements and relationships in the work systems we are seeking to change? Why is back-office transformation of particular interest now?
Trends: What is happening in the world of back-office management and reform? What examples should leaders learn from?
Guidelines: What are the major options for action? What, in particular, are the major mistakes that can readily be avoided by those seeking to move closer to leading practice?
During the symposium, attendees also discussed the types of reforms that governments have used to change the administrative functions. The three major types of reform included:
1. Remote service. The internet has opened up huge opportunities to distribute services via net-based rather than face-to-face transactions. Government services have gone "online, not in line." This allows production to take place independently of delivery (as when the network is used by citizens to access previously produced forms). It also allows service production to take place in "back-office" environments away from direct interaction with citizens.
2. Simplified and self-service. This lets workers answer for themselves questions that previously had to be answered by specialists. It allows case workers to handle much more of the interaction with clients before sending them on to someone else. For most administrative services -- payroll, travel reimbursements, health insurance, retirement investments, accounting, financial reports, etc. -- government workers themselves are the service recipients. This "back-office" work can be simplified and standardized for delivery over networks with substantial economies of scope and scale.
3. Outsourced service. The move to standardization and scale can support "shared service" units supplying administrative services from outside the program being served. Outside could be from another government program (as when payroll operations of a given department are expanded to serve multiple departments) or from a private sector supplier (as when payroll goes to a private sector payroll service). One of the benefits of outsourcing is the creation of an organization where work that formerly was ancillary to the "strategic core" of a government program is now provided by people from a unit where administrative services ARE the strategic core.
A white paper from the symposium will be presented at the ec3 Annual conference in Sacramento on December 4-6, 2006, along with two breakout sessions to delve deeper into this subject.
Download the White Paper
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