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Context
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I am currently a full-time student and therefore, will
concentrate this paper on my last place of employment.
Prior to coming to Fordham Business School, I was a Project Manager at the Office of the
Consul General, a unit of the Consulate General of the Philippines in New York. The
Consulate General of the Philippines is one of over 70 diplomatic posts of the Philippine
Department of Foreign Affairs which employs over 4,000 individuals in the home office and
the diplomatic posts.
Our post was fairly large compared to others. Some of our installations are as small as
two people: composed of an ambassador or consul general and an administrator covering the
primary activities (consular) and support activities (finance, administrative, etc.). The
Philippine Consulate General in New York, at the time of my resignation, employed 24
persons. At its peak in 1994, the personnel pattern totaled 27.
In addition to the Passport, Visa, Legal, and Community sections (primary activities), the
Consulate General also has the Finance, Administrative, Information, Investments
Promotions Unit (IPU), and the Office of the Consul General.
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APPLICATIONS
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The applications used at the Consulate General of the
Philippines are fairly simple and quite "low-tech." These were limited to
individual components of business suites, internet packages, and only two specialized
software programs. Depending on the activity, the operating systems in use were Windows
95, 3.1, and DOS.
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PowerPoint
& Wisemand/MacMillan’s Matrix
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PowerPoint, is an important technology supporting our
investments promotions and is highly-used in investments roadshows and meetings with
different commercial chambers. It is the favorite application of the IPU and serves as an
example of differentiation as it provides the Philippines with a competitive advantage
over its competitors (other countries trying to win investors over) that may use more
rudimentary presentation visuals such as slide projectors or transparencies.
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Netscape
Mail
&
Bullen & Johansen’s
Groupware Scenarios
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Netscape Mail, an email application, is one of the
applications I used daily as Project Manager and Assistant to the Consul General. It is an
application that fits the Bullen & Johansen Groupware scenario because it is used to
connect our post to other foreign service posts and the home office and our clients
(different-time/different-place). In addition to our post’s ability to send and
receive editable formatted documents to and from other posts and provide answer to client
queries, it also saves the organization money that would have gone otherwise to
long-distance service providers, shipping companies, and organizational payroll.
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Passport
and Visa
Databases
&
Porter’s
Value Chain Model
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The passport (Passport Information Support System) and visa
(Visa Information System Application) databases, the only DOS-based
Applications used by the post, are applications used daily by the Passport and Visa
sections. It fits Porter’s Value Chain Model as these serve as support mechanisms to
the primary functions of issuing passports to Philippine nationals and visas to foreign
visitors.
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Quattro
Pro
&
Gorry & Scott Morton’s
DSS Framework
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Quattro Pro, an excellent spreadsheet application, is used
by officers in their decision-making process. Quattro Pro falls under Gorry & Scott
Morton’s DSS Framework as a semi-structured decision type and managerial control.
Specifically, the program aids the post in preparing budget scenarios for our special
projects such as visits of high-ranking officials and annual activities such as
projections and budgeting. Indeed, Quattro Pro is indispensable because with its proper
use, the post improves the quality of the information on which their decisions are based
through the identification of several alternatives versus a single solution.
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IMPLICATIONS
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In my opinion, the applications used at the Philippine
Consulate General in New York albeit basic, are quite effective. I do however, feel that
there is much room for improvement in certain areas such as more sophisticated groupware
applications under the different-time/different-place and same-time/different-place
frameworks.
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In the different-time/different-place scenario for example,
there is no system which handles distribution of memoranda or reminders to all staff
members. Instead, the system used is very rudimentary: an administrative assistant goes to
each person and personally gives them a memo. The recipient then signs-off on a
distribution sheet acknowledging receipt of the memo. In terms of reminders, all personnel
have to be called to remind them of meetings. These approaches certainly waste a
person’s time and waste’s the organization’s human resources. Groupware
such as Lotus Notes or even providing email to everyone should at the very least, address
this problem utilizing personnel’s time more productively.
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Under the same-time/different-place framework,
teleconferencing and videoconferencing could provide better means for communications
thereby cutting time in making decisions. For example, some activities require meetings
among heads of different posts and the home office. Instead of drafting several documents
and exchanging these via fax or email just to ensure more accurate materials,
teleconferencing and videoconferencing could be utilized so that suggestions, feedback,
and decisions could be made immediately or simultaneously. These tools should result
immediately in more effective use of time and will prove cost effective in the long run.
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Lastly, I would like to praise the passport and visa
databases. Though rudimentary and not too user-friendly (DOS-based), these are the most
useful applications in use at the Consulate General of the Philippines in New York. By
having an extensive database of persons who are on the "look-out" list, a list
which identifies persons who have pending cases with the government or those who are
"flagged" for other reasons, the post has a more efficient and effective
operations issuing passports and visas. Indeed, these need solid information technology
since they are a bulk of the Consulate General’s primary activities. |
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