Impact of Strategic Information Systems in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Public Sector

An oil-rich nation, Abu Dhabi is one of the seven emirates that make up the federation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Abu Dhabi lies across the Arabian Gulf flanked on the west by Qatar and on the east by the Sultanate of Oman. As at end of year 2009 Abu Dhabi’s population stood at 1.643 million [2] .

The Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi began its Government restructuring programme in year 2005, which includes public sector reform among all the Government undertakings, in order to boost the efficiency of the workforce in the public sector as well as to enhance Government productivity to best serve the welfare needs of its people [3] . As a result of the public reform the Government of Abu Dhabi expects its managers of the public sector organisations to use the resources allocated efficiently and effectively for achieving successful organisational performance. And in order to do this the various public sector organisations should have automated information systems and develop appropriate performance measurement systems to ensure effective and efficient service delivery to people [4] .

Currently, there are 706 public sector organisations in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi [5] . The major public sector organisations among these are (only ten of them are listed here as key examples):

General Directorate of Abu Dhabi Police (ADP)

Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC)

Abu Dhabi Customs Administration

Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC)

Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre (ADSIC)

Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA)

Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC)

Department of Economic Development (DED)

Department of Finance (DOF)

Health Authority-Abu Dhabi.

Today’s public sector organisations operate in an increasingly competitive and tight financial environment (Salminen, A. & Niskanen, 1996 cited in Turunen & Kämäräinen, 1999). It can be seen from the above sampled list that all these public sector organisations of Abu Dhabi are service-based organisations. Each of these public sector organisations compete for budgetary allocations from the Government of Abu Dhabi.

Furthermore, there is also indirect competition between the public sector organisations and the organisations in the private sector (Turunen & Kämäräinen, 1999) in Abu Dhabi as well as in the other Emirates. A good example in this regard is the competition for the provision of healthcare services between the Health Authority-Abu Dhabi and private sector healthcare providers in Abu Dhabi. Likewise, the Health Authority-Abu Dhabi competes with Dubai Health Authority.

A well designed SIS not only enables strategy but also has the potential to provide competitive advantage for the public sector organisations in Abu Dhabi through improved services as well as lower costs which would also strengthen the formulation of effective strategy.

Information Systems and Abu Dhabi Public Sector

There are three categories of IS in use in Abu Dhabi public sector.

Category 1

Category 1 consists of information systems that include population-related registers, transportation registers, commercial registers, and legal registers (e.g. public utility companies, national library, and records of immovable property).

Category 2

Category 2 comprises information systems that handle the Government of Abu Dhabi’s central planning and government budgeting, and national accounting and financial reporting. More important function of Category 2 information systems is concerned with income transfers through taxes and subsidies.

Category 3

Category 3 is composed of information systems that handle the management of critical resources of the Government of Abu Dhabi namely, finance information systems, human resource information systems, and information systems used for the management of the Abu Dhabi Government’s plant and machinery, materials, and documents.

The output from these three categories of information systems provide critical information, given the sensitive nature of Government information, which needs to be managed effectively and efficiently at all times. In consequence, the Government of Abu Dhabi has designed the functionality of these informational systems to enable their chosen strategy to provide enhanced public services to its citizens.

Summary

The chapter discussed the literature that is related to this research study. Based on the literature a questionnaire would be developed to collect the necessary empirical evidences in order to fulfil the aims and objectives of this study.