Malaysia’s NBOS initiatives resounding success – Najib
You can hear the results (are there for all to see).
PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s National Blue Ocean Strategy ( NBOS) initiatives have radically transformed the way in which it delivers government services, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
He said the many blue oceaninspired strategies outlined achieved the stated objectives — high impact, low cost, rapid execution, social inclusion as well as encouragement and support for innovation.
“You can hear the results (are there for all to see),” he said when opening the International Conference on Blue Ocean Strategy (ICBOS) here yesterday.
The ICBOS themed ‘ Transforming Nations through Creativity and Innovation’ is being held in conjunction with the 2016 NBOS International Week which began Sunday and ends on Aug 20 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC).
Najib said under the NBOS, the public sector had taken numerous initiatives to tear down silos and allow creativity and innovation to rise in order to deliver superior services with real and improved results, maximise outcomes and enhance the value of its resources.
Since its implementation in 2009, Najib said more than 80 government ministries and agencies had joined forces to create high impact solutions to address current needs.
He cited the Urban Transformation Centres ( UTC), a one-stop centre providing a wide range of services under a single roof from 8am to 10 pm seven days a week in cities across Malaysia, as a great example of the impact of the NBOS.
He said the UTC initiative had resulted in savings of RM1.5 billion by utilising under utilised buildings instead of constructing from scratch.
“And we got them up and running very quickly.
“The first centre was ready in just six weeks. It took less than two months from the presentation of the initial idea to people being
Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Prime Minister
able to renew their passports, pay their utility bills, and enjoy other government services in UTC Melaka,” he said.
Currently, there are 15 UTCs across the country.
Najib said the UTC initiative had proved to be incredibly popular, with between June 2012 and July 2016, the UTCs recording a staggering 35.3 million visitors.
“UTCs have transformed the working practices of the government to make sure that we deliver services in as convenient a manner as possible.
“They are located where people need them the most, and are open late in the evenings as well as during the weekends,” he said.
Through the NBOS, Malaysia’s police and armed forces were now working ever more closely, he said.
“On the streets of Malaysia, you can see our police and our military side- by- side, offering both protection and reassurance to the public, and the increased joint training and collaboration has been of significant benefit for the safety of our nation,” he said.
He said the police-military collaboration had also extended to the sharing of training facilities, resulting in a saving of around RM700 million from not having to build new police training centres.
Najib said by adopting the Blue Ocean approach to maximise the personnel available for street patrols, over 7,400 police officers were moved from behind their desks and onto the front line of security on the streets.
“By repositioning, instead of hiring, training and paying that number of new officers, we saved RM1.3 billion which we would otherwise have had to spend while the office duties were tilled by civil servants from other departments where streamlining needed to be made,” he said.
Najib said the government acknowledged that businesses were a key source of new discoveries, new products, new ideas and new jobs needed to reach the nation’s goal of becoming a high income status nation by 2020.
He said the setting up of the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre or MaGIC, which he and US President Barack Obama jointly launched in 2014, was a key milestone in contributing to an environment that spurred entrepreneurship through training, providing links to research and funding, and making advanced technologies available.
He said that 14,000 new startups had already been established with MaGIC’s support, with some already staking a presence in the ASEAN region and globally.
Najib noted that the NBOS was a key tool to aid Malaysia in its National Transformation Programme.
He said while some still said that Malaysia should go ahead with vanity infrastructure and continuously pour money into loss-making industries “out of stubborn pride”, this created no sustainable wealth for the people.
“If we had continued with the old policies, we would have found the government and country swimming in an ocean of red,” he said.
Najib said setting up all these programmes under NBOS had required a huge transformation that was needed for Malaysia to escape the middle income trap.
He told the international conference that the Blue Ocean Strategies were not just for developing countries.
“And it is not for us, or for any others, to interfere with the domestic affairs of countries whose governments have the mandates of their peoples, or to tell them what model to follow,” he stressed.
He said blue ocean strategies could be formulated and implemented in any state that wishes to create high impacts - not just on the capital economy, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, big business, large investment projects or financial markets but also the people economy.
“What matters most to the people is jobs, small businesses, the cost of living, lifelong learning, family wellbeing, social inclusion and harmony and issues such as crime, traffic, pollution and worklife balance. In short, the things that determine public happiness,” he added. — Bernama