Vice President Jejomar C. Binay said the ultimate goal of operational excellence in government is to improve the lives of our countrymen and that true commitment to quality is indispensable in governance.
“Operational excellence then, is synonymous to continuous improvement of processes. And if operational excellence brings about the effective delivery of services in the government, then does it not follow that operational excellence is also synonymous with good governance?,” the Vice President said in a keynote speech during the 23rd National Quality Forum at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel.
Binay said like private companies, client satisfaction is important in government.
“Customer satisfaction is an accurate indicator of the firm’s ability to deliver the service it pledges,” he said.
“As they meet their quality targets, progressive firms take great pains to examine their data and distill more room for improvement in their operations. Such is the power of customer feedback,” he added.
Vice President Binay then suggested a three step approach in achieving operational excellence in government.
The first step he said, is enforcing fiscal reform resulting in adequate financial resources to be used in funding programs and offices vital to the delivery of basic social services.
However, Binay also acknowledged that sufficient funds and an effective budgeting system alone was not enough without an effective store of human capital.
“Happy employees make focused and productive employees, and decent pay attracts good personnel. This is step two,” he said.
Finally, Binay said that the third step involves implementing the use of performance indicators to measure success – making it easy to gauge performance and set further goals to improve services.
“The present administration is of this view, and the calls for good governance, transparency and effective projects are framed by this context,” he said.
“As we move forward, we continue to evaluate our performance versus our deliverables and make adjustments accordingly in the areas of personnel, funding and strategy,” he added.
