Topic 1.3: Business Drivers and their impact on delivering public value

What are ‘business’ drivers?

In Topic 1, you explored in some detail the concepts of strategy, public sector value and governance. Overall, these are the set of deliberations, actions, processes and expectations that potentially result in desired and long-term organisational outcomes.

In this section, we introduce the concept and impact of business drivers – those factors and dynamics that are defining forces in shaping the way that the organisation conducts its business of delivering desired outcomes. Here is one definition from the National Australia Bank: (NOTE: In the public sector, NGO and not-for-profit domains, we refer to their activities as the ‘business’ of the particular entity).

A recent report identifies the following are the key drivers: that is, the trends, new ideas and pest practices; that are likely to transform governments and that are likely to guide and support decision makers in their quest to deliver on their imperatives and address challenges. Reference: Seven Drivers Transforming Government, IBM Center for The Business of Government.

These are:

1. Driver One: Insight – Using data, evidence and analytics to create insight that influences decision making, actions and results
2. Driver Two: Agility – Adopting new ways for government to operate, using agile principles and putting user experiences and program results at the forefront
3. Driver Three: Effectiveness – Applying enterprise approaches to achieve better outcomes, operational efficiency and a leaner government
4. Driver Four: Risk – Mitigating risk, managing cybersecurity and building resiliency to meet the mission of government
5. Driver Five: People – Cultivating people; reforming processes for hiring, developing, and retaining workers; and leveraging data and technologies to build the workforce of the future
6. Driver Six: Engagement – Fostering a citizen-driven government through real-time, interactive feedback to engage, co-create, and co-produce services and programs
7. Driver Seven: Digital – Optimizing new technology and infrastructure models, focusing on the user experience and incentivizing innovators to modernize how government does business. (Page 5).

Why is it important to identify drivers in your environment? Public sector managers must clearly and carefully understand the environment in which they operate.

As a wrap-up to this sub-topic, let’s note that the ‘context’ of the ‘business’ of public service delivery is bounded by the concepts of public sector value and public sector governance, by a government’s overall ‘strategy’ to address crucial societal issues, by the agency/department’s long-term strategy, and by the immediate operational goals and objectives to be achieved. As we progress, we will continue to explore the ‘system’ that is shaped to ‘deliver’ outcomes, and the strategy processes that are in place to facilitate those outcomes.

Linking ‘business drivers’ to public perceptions of value

In Topic 2, you reflected on 7 Dimensions of Public Value (Table 1.1) in the context of your Workplace Project.

There is the potential for conflicts and competing dynamics in your context. The authors note that there are practical and inherent negative correlations between some dimensions. These are:

• Between Professionalism and Balancing Interests, and
• Between Rule Abidance and User Focus.

Why might this be so? In the case of ‘professionalism versus balancing interests’, the suggestion is around ‘who should decide’? That is, should those who have specialist knowledge and expertise in a particular field, have a greater ‘say’ than those who are affected and are part of a larger whole? The theory of ‘clan governance’ suggests that decisions should be taken by the ‘relevant group of actors’ based on intra-occupational norms, while ‘network governance’ theory suggests – extrovert in nature – that broadly all societal groups should be included in the process (Andersen et al., 2012)^[2].

Another approach is to consider the Public Value Scorecard, developed with both for profit corporations and public sector entities in mind (Meynhardt et al., 2014)^[3]. This approach seeks to identify public value that is either created or destroyed, and to:

• encompass the ideas that public value is a perceptual measure;
• that there are differing and competing ‘world views’;
• that there are competing value systems and ways of dealing with complexity; and
• that within society there is plurality, multiple realities and conflict.

Meynhardt, Gomez and Schweizer (2014) suggest that the Public Value Scorecard (Figure 1, Page 5), based on psychological needs theory, is a dialogue tool that serves multiple purposes. These include enabling conversations around competing needs; supporting a rigorous assessment of public value issues and risk assessment decisions. Additionally they provide links to the entity’s value proposition, strategy and decision-making.

The 5 key dimensions can be plotted on a spider-web (Figure 1.2), and can be overlaid with results from diverse stakeholder groups and assessing both risk and opportunity. They are:

• ‘Is the initiative useful?’
• ‘Is it decent?’
• ‘Is it politically acceptable?’
• ‘Is it a positive experience?’
• ‘Is it profitable?’ (In terms of outcomes – is the value of outcomes delivered greater than the value of the resources expended?)

Simply put, is it useful, ‘decent’, acceptable, positive, and ‘profitable’? The argument is that by using these dimensions, and measuring and presenting in a dynamic format, that ‘users’ can ‘see’ the relative confluences and trade-offs at a glance.

While there are many tools available, this may be an approach that public sector managers could use as a heuristic (rule of thumb) approach, or in a more rigorous fashion, to ‘sense check’ initiatives, both small and large.

Figure 1.2: The Public Value Scorecard (Meynhardt et al, 2014)