| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The first step in the plan was the integration of all departments within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order that coordination, communication and cooperation would be at suitably high levels once the initiative had been implemented.
The second phase extended this integration process to include other ministries and departments that are involved in the visa issuing process as well as other stakeholder groups such as banks, health clinics and the various and extensive service centres across the world (which have been comprehensively described in previous sections and which are again brought to attention below).
These activities meant that a number of stakeholders became increasingly involved in the pre-implementation planning and actions. Apart from civil servants at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these included over 116 Saudi Arabia Visa Application Centres within the Saudi Arabia and around the world, the Ministry of Foreign Affair's 7,844 Service Centres, 3299 Hajj and Umra Agency Centres outside Saudi Arabia as well as 306 Medical Centres, banks which process visa payments and governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Hajj, the Ministry of Interior, Chambers of Commerce and Tourism Authorities.
The third phase involved the development of a project team from within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, with assistance from partners, educating and training employees across the whole range of stakeholders in an understanding of the rationale behind the system, how it would operate, and how beneficial it would be to future visa applicants. This phase also included the building of a strong technical support team which would be available 24 hours a day during the implementation and post implementation phases.
The fourth phase involved the developing of the technology, its piloting, and its implementation. The system was built using a multi-tier architecture design which partitions the system components logically and physically into three independent layers; front-end (Web), middle tier (Middleware), and a database layer. This architecture provides very high levels of performance and availability through scaling these layers horizontally, by adding more servers, or vertically by adding more hardware resources to the servers. These operations were easily facilitated as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs already had virtualized infrastructure installed.
The implementation phase, however, did present some challenges. One was concerned with security and to enable communication between users and the system without potentially compromising it. This was overcome through employing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which provides security over the internet and enables the use of different authentication mechanisms based on functionality classifications such as basic authentication, multi-factor authentication, and client certificate authentication to ensure the identity of the user. Additionally, the system was set up from the outset to be accessible via smart phone applications and mobile phone programmes as well as a website online system using Asp.Net 4.0, HTML 5, CSS 3, MVC4, Jquery.
In the immediate post-implementation phase, the system was thoroughly scrutinised and feedback from users was encouraged. This had two consequences – the feedback could be used to identify those who required further support and training (because they were effectively reporting the fact that they were using the system wrongly) and to identify some important ‘teething’ problems which were overcome by updating the system.
In the second and ongoing post implementation phase, the system is regularly monitored, management reports can be extracted from it and these can be used as part of a dynamic process to ensure that future upgrades and modifications keep it at the forefront of best practices in its field.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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Pilgrims and other users who created a level of demand for visas to visit Saudi Arabia very much contributed to the new system because the level was such that the need for change became ever more compelling. In similar vein, employees at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contributed to demand because they not only communicated the fact that users were becoming frustrated with the time taken to process their requests, as well as the numbers that were returned because errors had been made, but also identified the specific areas where bottlenecks existed.
These points aside, the management and strategic decision and policy makers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as those at other partner ministries and departments were able to translate the communicated demands and needs of users into concrete plans which could then be aligned and checked against user preferences with the aid of surveys and other instruments of research. Such checking and surveying was also possible among the many agencies and service centres which handled visa applications.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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In terms of finances, the initiative was funded from the existing budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it cost a total of approximately 30 million Saudi Riyals, which equates to about $US 8 million. The ongoing costs of the project are more than covered by the fees paid for eVisas, a funding base that has expanded since the initiative was implemented in 2008. Figures to support this are that whereas 7,831,676 visas were granted in 2009, 10,757,657 were processed in 2012.
The technical costs for the infrastructure necessary to support the initiative had already been put in place by the Ministry prior to its conception and the remaining technical costs were in terms of the hardware and software to implement the initiative.
There were considerable human resource costs but, for the Ministry this was borne within the existing staffing levels. It (the Ministry) has diverse roles and was able to find sufficiently skilled people within the ranks of its own staff, so outside project teams were not necessary. Perhaps surprisingly, the biggest drain on human resources came from training but this, it can be held, was because of an early recognition that this would be a key success factor. With regard to other ministries and government departments involved in the process for issuing visas, the human resource costs were also met internally and, for the many overseas agencies, the costs were borne by each of them, but these were relatively small in comparison to the core human resource costs incurred in Saudi Arabia. In summary, while the system is handled by more than 1,000 employees including the staff in Saudi’s embassies and consulates around the world, this is no more than the human resource costs that existed prior to the initiative. In terms of productivity, the initiative has created a saving in human resource costs as significantly more visas are now processed without a need to increase staffing levels.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Five of the most important concrete outputs resulting from this initiative are:
1. Over the four year period following the implementation of the eVisa system, and despite the fact in excess of 11,000 external agencies and 116 internal ones as well as the Ministry itself and partner ministries had to become familiar with the process over this period, the number of processed eVisas increased by 37.4%. This was also a period when the world economy in terms of GDP growth contracted (in 2009) and when the world tourism and travel industry was below 2008 levels for two of the years in question (2009 and 2010).
2. Statistics that measure efficiency and customer satisfaction are regularly collected and these show that the average waiting time for a via prior to the initiative was 5 working days, while after it this average time has been reduced to less than 24 hours.
3. Significant cost efficiencies have been gained at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, partner government ministries and the wider agencies and partners involved in the initiative. This can be seen by the fact that the number of visas processed has increased significantly (see above) while staffing levels have remained the same.
4. As one of the first government services that embraced the e-government philosophy proposed by senior leaders, the success of the initiative has provided strong encouragement for other government agencies and departments to develop and implement their own systems and these have already transformed and are in the process of further transforming their systems.
5. A further and very important concrete benefit in social and cultural as well as business terms is the fact that because Saudi Arabia now has many more visitors, its position as the custodian of the holy sites of Makkah and Madinah is enhanced, and so there are more opportunities for the people of the nation to show that they are worthy custodians and good hosts to pilgrims and tourists. In terms of business, the vibrant, expanding and diversifying country that the Kingdom is can only be further enhanced by having more people visiting for business purposes.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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One key system that has been put in place to monitor progress and evaluate activities is a measure not only of the number of applications that are processed monthly, quarterly and annually but also the average time taken for them to be processed. This second function is of particular importance because it can identify at an early stage whether there are any points in the process that are causing a problem with regard to delays, so they can be speedily resolved.
Within these overall statistics, however, it was considered to be important to measure the ease of access through the various means available to applicants. The above parameters (numbers and time taken to process) is also evaluated by the means used, for example online applications using a terminal and applications via smart phone.
A further key performance indicator that has been adopted and used is the number of effective and satisfactory responses that are made to help requests from users. Similarly, the number of errors made is used as a measure of the relative accuracy of the processing system.
Where there is interdepartmental, inter-ministry and other partner involvement, the average time taken in processing is also measured.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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1. Although the inclusion of stakeholders was identified at an early stage as being a key factor in terms of success, significant problems were still encountered in this area. This was particularly true of partners outside of the Ministry and the country.
This problem was addressed in two distinct ways. For partners within Saudi Arabia, meetings were held at different levels, with the opportunity provided for views to be aired and specific problems to be identified so that reassurances could be given. Alongside this, key change agents were identified and were utilised to informally relate positive stories concerning the changes as they interacted with their colleagues. For the many external agencies, lines of communication were deepened and both technical and narrative support was provided, again with reassurances given by nominated personnel.
2. A similar problem concerned the standardising of processes across ministries, other internal partners and across the many agencies external to the Kingdom.
The technology had to be adaptable to multiple scenarios and this was relatively easily overcome but it also had to be user friendly so that its adaptability could be understood across this wide range of users. This was overcome by providing feedback from partners during the piloting and implementation processes so that this could be used to appropriately modify the system.
3. The provision of effective training and 24 hour technical support
Sufficient skills existed within the Ministry and so it was a case of enabling the use of these. This was managed by releasing key staff from their normal duties so that they could devote their time to the provision of training and/or technical support, while the remainder covered their normal duties. A number of motivational techniques were employed for this, such as rewards and explaining the future common benefits that the initiative would bring.
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