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ISSA.

ISSA. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE AND ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION. KRAKOW 3-4 JUNE 2004. Theme 2 Friday , 4 June 2004. The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on the Structure, Organization and Administration of

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  1. ISSA. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE AND ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION. KRAKOW 3-4 JUNE 2004.

  2. Theme 2 Friday , 4 June 2004 . The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on the Structure, Organization and Administration of Social Security Schemes By Dr Adam H Mayingu Dar es salaam, Tanzania

  3. This Presentation highlights; • The alignment between business strategy and ICT • ICT deployment ; a PSPF case study. • Challenges faced by developing countries in adopting ICT. • How ICT development affects the structure and organisation of scheme administrators.

  4. 1.0 Introduction The demand for quick, efficient and secure service delivery to clients as well as other stakeholders’ expectations has made the administration of social security schemes and Governments adopt new business models that embrace the use of ICT .

  5. 2.0 Social Security Institutions from Corporate Perspectives. Social security schemes like other organisations develop their Corporate Strategic plans that guide them for a particular planning horizon . “A Strategy is a unified, comprehensive and integrated plan that relates the advantages of the firm to the challenges of the environment. It is designed to ensure that basic objectives of the entreprise are achieved through proper execution by the organisation” (Jauch and Gleck,1988)

  6. Strategic planning delivers amongstothers :- · A plan that is aligned with the vision and objectives of the organisation. · An assessment of business trends - How the functional mission is changing. · An assessment of corporate trends - Organisation and Component directions. · An assessment of technological trends - What will be economically feasible and relevant in the future. · A plan to satisfy the critical information requirements of the organisation.

  7. 3.0 ICT Development. • The cost of equipment going down and increase of processing capacity . • Distributed systems- small systems, need for resource sharing and up to date information requirements. • Diversity of networking options, LAN, WAN, broadband,wireless which is faster to deploy. • Emergence of internet and World Wide Web.

  8. 4.0 Typical use of ICT 4.1 Introduction to PSPF Established by the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania through Act No.2 of 1999 to provide for contributions to and payment of pensions, gratuities and other benefits in respect of the service of officers in the Government and employees of Executive Agencies. From July, 2004 the Fund will start to pay various benefits to members.

  9. 4.2 The Business and Administration Functions for Automation • Pensions and Benefits Administration. • Finance/Accounts and Investment management. • Integrated Payroll and Human resource management. • Office automation systems, internet/intranet services. • Document Image management system linked to respective databases.

  10. 4.2 The Business and Administration Functions for Automation • Help desk management system/ problem-log tracking system. • Web site to facilitate information delivery to the members, employers and the public in general. • Having temper-proof Identification cards for pensioners/members.

  11. 4.3 The approach for software acquisition.The Fund opted for off the shelf solutions because by buying from outside: 1.The management will focus on core business rather than Information technology 2.The services and support will be offered by specialist providers. 3.There will be great flexibility through freedom of choice. 4.More control due to customer-supplier relationship. 5.The system will be up and running within a short time.

  12. 4.4 Project management methodology. • The methodology adopted by PSPF and how it fits in the overall project life-cycle is conceptually shown in the figure below.

  13. 4.5Project Achievements.4.5.1 General Systems architecture The Fund has decided to go for a 3-Tier Client/Server architecture. In this model, a front-end application will communicate with a dedicated application server process (agent) running on a server on the network. . The reasons that prompted the Fund to go the 3-Tier way are improved system scalability, improved responsiveness, real-time processing ability and much smaller (and therefore easier to debug) front end-applications.

  14. 4.5.2 Application Software and Databases

  15. 4.5.3 Pensions Administration System – Com_Pen 2000 • Architecturally, The Com_Pen 2000 system will be configured in a 3-Tier configuration. • A pictorial representation of the logical model of the Com_Pen 2000 system to be put in place is depicted here under:

  16. 4.5.3 Pensions Administration System – Com_Pen 2000 Enterprise Portal (EP)/Enterprise Integration External Interfaces • Application and User level Security • Acu thin Workflow Report writer Chequeprinting parameterised Services Monthly contr. update Monthly Int. Allocation Benefit Calculation Compliance Report generation Benefit payment Benefit statement Business rules Help Letter generator Audit trail Menu Security register Tools & Utilities Core module Defined contr. Defined Benefit. Fund Acc. Pens. Payroll Loan Admn. Funeral Benefit Document Image Mgnt Fund admin. backbone • Database & OS Security • AcConnect • cuCobo Runtime OS & RDBMS Sybase & Unix (Linux Red Hat)

  17. 4.5.4 Accounting System– SmartStream 6.5 • SmartStream is an integrated accounting enterprise resource planning (ERP) application designed for large organizations. • SmartStream is embedded with workflow technology that facilitates the flow of work among users automating manual and repetitive processes.

  18. 4.5.5 Document Image Management Application – LaserFiche • PSPF stores scanned images of Letter of first appointment, letter of confirmation on pensionable terms and registration forms bearing photograph and fingerprints for all members of the Fund. The Fund has acquired a specialized software product called LaserFiche for archiving, managing and retrieving of all organizational documents with a view of creating a paperless office environment. The system has in built workflow which enables the users to send document on-line just as physical files are handled. • Horizontally this application is integrated with other applications, particularly the pension administration system (Com_Pen) for easy of documents retrieval during pension processing.

  19. 4.5.5 Document Image Management Application – LaserFiche

  20. Sybase Enterprise Portal (EP)All the systems as described above are wrapped together within the enterprise portal (EP). Benefits of having the Portal in place • Single sign-on facility ie seamless single point access • Simple integration

  21. Architecture with EP (Horizontally & vertically integrated Compen SmartStream e-Horizon DIM Helpdesk EP

  22. The PSPF EPORTAL

  23. Databases & Operating Systems: • Databases: • Oracle 9i Standard edition, unlimited users • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.5 Operating Systems: • Red Hat Linux 7.3 • Windows 2000 Server • Windows 2000

  24. Hardware Acquired Flat monitor PCs with Cordless mouse and keyboards, radio/Tv tuner cards •  NAS and servers •  Broad band internet with security system.

  25. What Happened? Management • The Project Sponsor had been very supportive thus influencing other stakeholders. • The project implementation is included in the CEO’s progress report to every meeting of the Board of Trustees. The Fund now has the capability of making prompt payments and members’ records are up to date.

  26. Technical Issues • While we had planned to standardise on one type of RDBMS; circumstances forced us to go for two. • For some reasons such as un-certification of some platforms by contracted vendors we started with 2 tier and later on will move on to 3-tier architecture. • The envisaged ICT infrastructure was to have an elaborate Executive Information System that gives management an up to date status of the operations. • On the pensions administration; we requested an upgrade to GUI and change of database type which the supplier estimated it will take 4 months but it ended up going on for 8 months.

  27. It has been clear that our ICT strategy has been far ahead of all suppliers especially the integration • The state of the art ICT also had problems being understood by some consultants (e.g. wireless keyboards and mouse, the 3-tier architecture). • Getting competitive proven software application product for pension administration was difficult.

  28. Human Resources and other people involvement • Referred to here are the fund administration staffs as well as the stakeholders. Outsourcing • The Fund hired specialised computer training experts who carried out the training to all staff including the CEO on how to use computers • Payment of benefits has been outsourced to financial institutions through competitive tendering.

  29. Relation with partners • So far with the exception of one supplier; the relations have been relatively good. Surprises • Wireless equipment-at early days knowing that the equipment require batteries replacement was difficult especially the very early days

  30. 5. Adoption of ICT and the Challenges to Developing Countries. • In developing countries ICT adoption faces a number of obstacles such as absence of power, literacy among the potential users, technical expertise to support and maintain ICT infrastructure and the major obstacles being poor telecommunication and lack of Computers

  31. 5.1 Telecommunication • There is quite a promising future as deployment of mobile phone infrastructure is moving fast rather than the land lines projects • Africa Mobile phone subscribers increased by over 1000% between 1998 and 2003 to reach 51.8 million compared to fixed line, which stood at 25.1 million at the end of 2003. • The continent’s rapid mobile sector expansion has been driven by a combination of factors: demand, sector reform, the licensing of new competitionand the emergence of major strategic investors, such as Vodacom, MTN, Orascom and Celtel [African Telecommunication Indicators 2004].

  32. Developing countries –Telecommunications: 2001 Source: World Bank Development Indicators (www.worldbank.org)

  33. Mobile Phone usage in Africa Source: BBC Focus in Africa, Jan-March 2004 pp20

  34. 5.2 ICT Equipment. In order to take advantage of the wireless technology, applications need be developed and integrated/interfaced to the current systems. "Mobile technology is the Information Society in Africa", explains Michael Minges, Head of ITU’s Market, Economics and Finance Unit and lead author of the African Telecommunications Indicators 2004 report.

  35. Mobile Phone usage in Africa Source: http://www.cellular.co.za/news_2004/may/0501004-itu_says_africa_is_the_world.htm.

  36. 5.3 The Legal framework • There is no adequate legislation to support electronic transactions typical of this is the evidence act, Bills of exchange act etc to some countries

  37. 5.4 The ICT life span • The changes in ICT happens everyday and at certain stage confusing the scheme administrators of which technology or solutions to adopt

  38. 6. How ICT affects the Structure and Organisation of Social Security Administrators. • With the adoption of ICT the move is towards centralised model office thus enabling administrators to limit their presence to every place where they do business. • While it looks cost effective; the integration of various ICT applications to support this structure is not a simple one

  39. We can report the impact of ICT on organizations in the following key aspects: • Efforts of being responsive to changes • Changes to organisation structure • changes in decision flows within the organisation • the move towards less physical operations to tactical and strategic functions • removal of geographical barriers, addition of time(24/7/365), culturalchanges where global • Changes in new directions from operational to core business functions.

  40. Impact on decision making and support system • improved accuracy • Greater control and efficiency in decision making process, MIS. • shorter time frame and quality decision making • data being tailored by relevance to the activities of the organisation • Changes to management structures • Organisation adopt flat based against hierarchical structures to enhance compatibility of staff to available resources. • The need for effective reallocation of resources • Outsourcing

  41. 7.0 Conclusion. • Automation of business operations generally tends to improve processing speed, accuracy and reduced cost per transaction • It also enables organisations to systematically identify, acquire, store, analyse, distribute and re-use information and knowledge from all sources in order to enhance organisational productivity and competitiveness .

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