Strategy and Organizational Innovation - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Business Strategy and Organizational Innovation. Answer: Introduction: The MPS or Metropolitan Police Service, which was previously known as the Metropolitan Police is the territorial police force of Greater London, and are responsible for enforcing the law over there. They also have significant responsibilities related to the nation, which include protecting the British Royal Familys senior members along with the associates of the ministry of Her Majestys Government and The Cabinet. They also lead and co-ordinate on matters related to national counter-terrorism in the UK. Approximately 48,660 full-time employees and 3,270 part-time Special Constables are working for the Met, making it the largest force of police in the United Kingdom (Met.police.uk., 2017). An analysis of the Metropolitan Police Service was done by using the Five Forces model of Michael Porter and conducting a SWOT analysis of the establishment. Strengths The major strength of the police force is that it has a massive work force, which is efficiently trained and proficient in their work. There are 1,626 non-sworn officers of the police community support, 9,521 staff of the police, and 32,125 sworn officers. Weaknesses Technology is essential for the organisation, and its main weakness is that it has out of date ICT, because of which the police officers cannot perform to their full potential. Opportunities If new and efficient ICT is used by the organisation, then they will be able to reduce the rate of crime and improve the confidence of public on police. Threats The key threat that The Met is facing is the usage of expensive and ineffective technology, which is harming the association more than helping them. Table 1: SWOT analysis of the Met It has become imperative for all organisations to use technology in its everyday operations (Etling et al. 2010, p.37). It helps them in enhancing their productivity and ensures that they can survive in the competitive environment. Like all the organisations present in the current corporate world, the Met also relies completely on technology for all its function. Everything from communicating with the common people to recording and solving crimes requires the use of technology. Technology has helped the police force in developing significantly, and several aspects of their work are becoming hampered because of the existing ICT systems being used by them. More than 250 million is being spent by the organisation for running its information and communication technology or ICT. From this, most of the money is spent on maintaining their overly-expensive, ineffective and out-of-date systems. There have been constant and rapid changes in the technologies and many innovations are being made, because of which several organisations are facing issues. These enterprises are not being able to keep up with the changes in the technology and as a result of this their productivity is becoming low. The Metropolitan Police Service is a chief example of this. Previously, they could use technology efficiently, but that has changed because of lack of a coherent strategy. As a result of this, there has been an increase in the rate of crime in the city. This is because most of the criminals have smart phones and along with having access to more sophisticated technology as compared to the one used by the police officers of London. The activities or performance undertaken by an organisation to increase the worth of services and goods provided by them is known as value creation (Grnroos and Voima, 2013, p.133). The chief value that every police department has is solving the problems of the citizens of the country. Assisting the citizens, responding to their calls, catching criminals, and minimising the rate of crime are a few major values followed by the police officers at the Met. However, they require proper facilities so that they can efficiently solve the crimes and catch the culprits, which is not available. Recently, many international bodies and researcheers have recognised the importance and potential of information and communication technologies in value creation of public service. There has been an increase in the demand of public value by the citizens. They want the government to be able to give return on the investment that has been done by the private sectors and individual citizens. Since the techn ology has become so advanced, there have been various changes in the way of living of all individuals. Technology has not only made the lives of public easier, it has also facilitated in an increase in crimes. Thus, to be able to stay ahead of criminals, police officers are need to use advanced ICT systems, so as to serve the public efficiently. Main challenges being faced by the organisation With the increase in the development of technology, the Met has been becoming more dependent on the information and communication system for functioning effectively (Schmidt and Cohen, 2010, p.75). However, there are various challenges being faced by The Met currently. They are: The existing systems of ICT being used by the Metropolitan Police Service are extremely poor, because of which the police officers cannot perform their job efficiently. They require more than 30 minutes for logging into their computer and enter the same information in different systems repeatedly. Due to this, their time gets wasted and more opportunities are created for error. Smart phones and tablets are the most basic technology present in todays world and almost every individual in London have them because of the low cost. Due to this, they have instant access to news, restaurant reviews, travel and much more. However, the police officers at The Met are still using radios for getting in touch with the base and gaining access to basic background information. If the personnel require any information related to a particular suspect, previous reports of a crime or any other thing, then they contact their peers by using a radio. It is highly incredible that these police officers use modern technology when they are at home, whereas exceedingly outdated technology is provided to them at work. Technology is not being used efficiently in the Met and because of this no support is being provided to the frontline police officers. A study was undertaken by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), to analyse the use of technology on field by police officers present in six forces. According to the study, out of the nineteen essential technology operating systems that a constable requires for undertaking the frontline roles, only one - mobile telephony - was available consistently. This technology also did not work effectively all the time; and even the police officers, who were present in forces where good technology had been provided, did not know how to use it efficiently. The technology at the Met has been ageing because they have not been able to keep up with the changes in ICT. More than 750 systems are present in the organisation that has been wired collectively for the past forty years. The situation is going to become worse because these existing systems are going to become obsolete very soon, and 70 per cent systems are already redundant. Increased spending on the ICT system: Since the existing ICT systems are unproductive and outdated, their maintenance has become expensive. A proper coherent strategy for maintaining the ICT systems is not present in the police force. They have been spending increasing amount of money on ICT, but rather than getting invested in new technology, this money is being used for the maintenance of old systems. This has resulted in inefficiency among the officers and high rate of crime. A right balance is required between investing and saving, but this rule is not being followed by the Met (Garfinkel, 2010, p.S73). According to research, they have been spending excessively on keeping their ICT running instead of saving. New technology will require significant investment and currently the Metropolitan Police Service has trivial savings. Furthermore, there is no clarity on the means with which funding will be arranged for the new technology. Apart from this, there have been several problems with the systems in the back-office.. Various representatives of the industry have confirmed that excessive spending is being done on ICT by the police forces. If there is any problem with the existing technology; instead of trying to solve it, they go directly to technology solution and spend unnecessarily even for minor issues. Moreover, instead of exploiting the capabilities of the ICT systems that have already been done by them previously, the officers have the tendency of buying new technologies. Then they incorporate them with the systems that are already present, and most of the times the results are unsuccessful. Proper planning is non-existent in the Met, which has resulted in increased and ineffective spending. For the past few years, senior leadership has been performing inefficiently. The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and the police force were not successful in implementing their long term strategies for technology in the past. The Met does not have adequate oversight and support required for improving their use of ICT. Implementing an effective ICT strategy is vital, and the Directorate of Information (DoI) of the Met plays an important role in it; but it lacks capability and capacity. Additionally, because of the absence of a director, the MOPAC or Mayors Office for Policing and Crime cannot perform its task of overseeing the new ICT strategy of the force. MOPAC has also stated that the Mets senior management team has not been taking ownership of its ICT function. It is apparent that the DoI, or the technology department of the Met has not been able to ensure that efficient technology is provided to the police officers. After analysing the situation, Deloitte found that gaps were present in the performance of DoI in performing the role of a partner to the Met. The DoI would be responsible for engaging the officers present in the Met while designing and implementing a strategy. However, they have been playing the role of supplier instead and just doing what the Met has been telling them to do. The DoI is not properly organised, and there is a requirement to develop and train the exiting staff, and hire new people. Many top and skilled staffs have been leaving to take other jobs in the industry because of the Voluntary Exit programme of the Met. This has resulted in a lack of proficient employees in the DoI, which will have costly repercussions in the future. Implications of Poor ICT Having new and effective technology has become mandatory for police officers and using outdated technology is having a negative impact on the work of the Met (Singh and Hackney, 2011, p.48). It has been hampering their work and effectiveness. As a result of using ineffective technology, a lot of time is being spent by the police officers in logging on to different systems and re-entering the data in all the computers. If efficient cloud technology was being used by the Met, then they could easily access the same data from different systems. However, since that is not present at the Metropolitan Police Service, the officers and other people present in the organisation have to copy the same data repeatedly in different systems, because otherwise the other officers will not have access to all the information. Additionally, most of the officers are currently deployed without being able access the information on the activities of criminals that the police force has. This has significantly reduced their efficiently in catching criminals, as it is not possible for them to retain information about all criminals and they always have to go back to base to find out information. Due to inept technology, the officers cannot communicate effectively with the businesses and public. According to HMIC, having good technology and being more preventive results in lower rate of crime. Since poor technology is used by the police force, there has been an increase in the crime rate in the past few years. Another major challenge being faced by the Met is that they are having difficulty in regaining advantage in operations over the criminals. All the criminals have access to at least the basic smart phones and most of them are proficient in using even higher end technology (Seba and Rowley, 2010, p.611). The officers at the Met dont have access to even the most basic technology because of which they are always one step behind the criminals, which was proved by the riots of 2011. To avoid this, the police officers working for the Met have been using their personal tablets and smart phones to be more efficient. This has given rise to a parallel infrastructure of ICT at the Met, and the officers can do their jobs more efficiently by using their own smart phones instead of using the kits that have been provided to them (Newburn et al. 2012). The Met has been spending high amount of money on its information and communication technology, but since the technology has become extremely old, with most of the systems being redundant; maintaining these elderly systems have become excessively expensive. More than 85 per cent of the money from the budget allotted by the Met for its ICT has been going in repairing these old systems or rather in keeping the lights on. A minuscule portion is left for buying modern technology and improving the access of public. Since, the police officers do not have access to Smart phones and high-end computers, the quantity and range of information that they can access to is also limited. As more information can be stored online along with being accessed easily, the police officers would have been able to save a lot of time. However, they have to do the entire process manually, which is very time consuming and not as effective. Since the officers at the Met have ineffective computer systems, they prefer doing their work manually, and spend a substantial amount of time in completing their reports. Their operations have become excessively paper-intensive because of this and considerable resources of the organisation are spent for storing the records and maintaining them. Due to this, significant amount of time of the police officers is wasted because of this. Several studies have been conducted to analyse the impact of using efficient ICT systems on crime. According to a study conducted by Newburn (2012), in more than 95% of the detectives that were surveyed , stated that the time spent by them on solving crimes had reduced significantly after enhanced ICT systems were installed in their work stations. A lot of officers at the Met are frustrated because of lack of proper systems and facilities, which is having an even more negative impact on their work. The technology is already present and an individual can do anything that they want. The public of the UK can find information about any and everything while walking on the street about the area that they are in or any other place. In contrast, there has been slow integration of technology in the Metropolitan Police Service, and old technology is being used, which gives no benefit to the police officers. Furthermore, the proliferation of digital devices and channels has ensured that the officers can help the public more efficiently as they have greater means of communication and better access to information. However, since the Met does not have access to enhanced digital channels, they cannot engage quickly and efficiently with the citizens of London. Without having real-time access to communication technology and data of the criminals and other cases, the officers are unable to help the citizens properly. With the advancement of technology, police officers can easily track the clues left behind by criminals, like their DNA or a digital footprint; but since the Met dont have access to sophisticated systems, they are not able to capture these clues several times and lose the culprit (Bossler and Holt, 2012, p.175). Cyber-crime has risen drastically in the last decade and has been posing a new threat to the operations of the police forces. According to Choo (2011), the law and police enforcement agencies have to change even the most basic skills that they think are necessary for solving crimes because of the increase in cyber threats. The United Kingdom was recently warned by the Home Affairs Select Committee that the country has been losing in the fight to reduce internet crime. Appropriate technology is essential for fighting internet crime, and the Met needs to change its technology requirements to be prepared for facing the challenges in the future (Choo, 2011, p.719). Solution and recommendation With the advent tablets and Smartphones, the officers have the opportunity of staying well connected by having access to police-specific data and other relevant public data, due to which they can utilise their time effectively and make informed decisions (Garicano and Heaton, 2010, p.167). Since the ICT systems at the Metropolitan Police Service are in a poor condition, and they cannot work effectively, a new strategy for ICT should be adopted by the Met. There are various theoretical models present that can help in understanding the methods with which the Met can overcome these challenges and simultaneously create and enhance its customer value. Sigmoid curve The Sigmoid curve can easily describe all types of phenomena, regardless of its nature. It basically states that every phenomenon has an initial period of development, then a phase of introduction, followed by sharp growth. In the later stage, the rate of growth slows down, which ultimately leads to decline. According to this curve, nothing is permanent, and because of changes in the tastes and preferences of consumers and advancement of technology, every practice comes to an end. Radical innovation is required to transform the service provided to the citizen. However, there is a lack of innovation in the Met because of the absence of driving concepts like profit, products and competition. The current ICT systems of the police force have reached a stage of decline and the only way in which the Met can improve is, by starting a new Sigmoid Curve before the existing one is complete. Low cost strategy According to Teece (2010), an organisation should exploit the economy to ensure that it has the lowest structure of cost. The Metropolitan Police Service should follow this strategy as it will help the organisation in cutting the additional costs while ensuring that the quality is maintained. The excessive spending being done by the Met on its old and outdated technology should be stopped and the money should be invested in buying new ICT systems. This will ensure that the cost is reduced in the long run and the productivity of the officers will also improve. Benchmarking practice Adopting benchmarking practices will be highly beneficial for the Met, as they will be able to compare their performance with the best police forces in the world, which are the National Police Agency (NPA) of Japan and the New York Police Department (NYPD) of the USA. The Met should examine the operations and activities undertaken by them along with the ICT that these forces use. This will help them in understanding how they can use advanced ICT systems for their operations and benchmarking will ensure that they improve their operations according to the standard that has been set by NPA and NYPD. For example, the Met can use predictive policing technique, which is an effective tool for allocating resources and targeting crime efficiently. These techniques are used in the NYPD and NPA and have been successful in bringing down the rate of crime and raising both community assurance and productivity. Value chain analysis As stated by Ramirez (2010), value chain analysis helps in analysing the internal activities of an organisation. The Met should use this strategy tool to examine the activities performed by the police officers and other individuals in the organisation, and recognise those activities that the most valuable. This will help the Met in improving its operations by enhancing the efficient activities and minimising the inefficient ones (Ramirez and Rainbird, 2010, p.699). McKinsey model The 7-S framework developed by McKinsey focuses on seven main internal aspects of an enterprise. According to Singh (2013), if these aspects are aligned properly, then the enterprise will be successful. The 7-S model can be used by the Met, as it will help the organisation in improving its performance by aligning its processes and departments, determining the best way for implementing a strategy and examining the effects that can be caused because of changes in the future. New information and communications strategy that the Met can adopt There is a requirement of a new and enhanced ICT strategy for the Metropolitan Police Service. The first thing that should be done by the Met to solve its ICT problems is to carry out a root-and-brand review. This will help the organisation in understanding the technology that it required for meeting the objectives related to policing roles and responsibilities (Cavelty and Mauer, 2016). Two new themes should be followed by them facilitating the force to work more tenuously and utilising the data available with the Met adequately. They should invest in inter-linked systems so that duplication of work will be avoided and the officers will be able to access real-time information on the field. The Met must make a massive jump and significantly develop its ICT system so that the savings target of the organisation can be achieved. It should try to reduce the costs required for running the technology in three years by 60 million. The police force should target savings in its budget allotted for the ICT or information and communications technology, as a significantly higher amount is spent by the Met on ICT than any other public bodies and police forces. There is an urgent requirement of new ICT systems in the police force, and to achieve that, the force should engage more effectively with the industry. They should concentrate on the outcomes of policing, such as improving communication with the citizens, supporting victims, and reducing crime. This will allow the stakeholders of the industry in suggesting the most effective ways of achieving these outcomes. Since the spending on ICT will be reduced by the Met, several other significant changes should be implemented by them so that the service provided by them to the public does not get affected. This has already been started by the organisation by starting the Met Change Programme, with which the force is implementing a new policing model. Furthermore, the Met can approach other police forces for some time, for delivering a joined-up approach towards technology. It should also collaborate with the London Ambulance Service and the London Fire Brigade, because the Mayor of London plays a strategic role in ensuring that the emergency services of London are working collaboratively and developing ICT, which will provide Londoners with superior level of service (Mawby, 2010, p.124). Most of the technology spending of the Met is on its ICT contracts. One of its largest contracts, where more than 115 million is spent every year, is with Capgemini. These contracts can be replaced when they expire with cheaper substitutes, so that more savings can be done. There is a requirement of new framework for digital transformation at the Met, and when that will take place, then the contracts will also need to be altered. Moreover, the Met should also invest in cloud based technologies, as the contacts in these servers are on the basis of paying as per usage. Thus, ICT can be organised and used by investing little. Most of the private sector and even some organisations in the public sector, like the Ministry of Defence use the cloud technology. This will help the Met in eliminating the amount spent on buying, operating and maintaining its own servers, as an external IT contractor will be paid for the work. Though social media is not an appropriate method for all types of purpose, but the forces will still get an opportunity for interacting with different parts of the communities, which will enable them to share their problems. The MOPAC should first ensure that the resources and skills required for implementing the ICT strategy of the Met successfully is present in the DoI. If required, necessary steps should be taken to ensure that the DoI is fit for this responsibility. The Met should also start using predictive crime mapping for allocating resources proficiently and reducing crime. Since data from historic crimes are used for predicting future likely crimes; police officers can be deployed in these areas, which will augment their chances of catching criminals. Mobile devices should be provided to the officers, which will help them in accessing the ICT systems of the Met easily from anywhere (Yang et al. 2013, p.1854). This will also eliminate the requirement of performing duplicate tasks like entering the data. Additionally, it will also help in reducing costs, as fewer people will be required in the back office. Instead of having to fill different forms numerous times, they can just complete the task at once and send the information to the central system. They can also access information and their databases from the field without having to go back to the base station, and it will also lead to improved quality of work and quicker capturing of data. Various new technologies can be used by the Met for improving its operations like facial recognition technology, body cameras and surveillance drones (Finn, and Wright, 2012, p.184). The drones used for surveillance will provide a cost effective and time saving alternative for manned helicopters. However, since the resources available with the Met are limited, investment has to be made wisely. All the technologies cannot be installed at once, and a cost-benefit analysis has to be done along with analysing the mistakes of others for understanding which technologies should be invested in. Conclusion The Metropolitan Police Service has been performing efficiently since its inception. However, lately their performance has deteriorated because of the use of outdated and ineffective information and communications technology. Improving the ICT systems has become imperative for the Met, as significant amount of money is being spent on its maintenance. Additionally, the police force has not been able to perform its duties properly because using these outdated systems are time consuming and they cannot access the records and other information that they require easily. There are various theoretical models available that can be used by the Met for analysing and improving their performance. 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