Single Window Systems
In the OIC Member States
102
Policy Options
1. Cost Assessment Methodology
Use of a costs assessment methodology, such as Total Costs of Ownership (TCO), that can better
guide investment and resource allocations at different levels of budgeting. It allows costs to be
properly assessed and monitored in a comprehensive manner including procurement,
development, operation, personnel, training, logistical support and engagement of assets.
2. Common Business Process Design and Inventory
Changes at the business and service level can be planned using a common business process
design and inventory that is shared by all stakeholders, at least the service providers of the back
end side. Using a common process design assists in the design and delivery of simplified
business processes and re-use of IT services and processes for business processes that have
similar requirements. It is therefore an efficient way to adapt faster and in a more cost effective
manner to changing needs.
Examples from OIC Member States
Cameroon
As part of the second generation SW project, e-GUCE undertook an extensive BPA and
simplification. The duration for the full re-engineering and analysis of the business processes
(AS-IS to TO-BE) including process validation sessions and the feedback workshop with
agencies was eight months. It had received financial and technical assistance from the World
Bank to build in-house capacity for BPA.
5.2.2 IT Architecture and infrastructure
The table below shows the challenges and possible strategies and options to overcome these
challenges on the IT architecture and infrastructure level.
Table 25: IT Architecture - Challenges and Options
Challenges
1. Inflexibility of IT Architecture
The IT architecture may not be flexible enough to adapt changes and re-use services. This makes
it costly to adapt a centralized architecture model to a decentralized environment, and
maintenance and changes come with high costs and risks if services are hardcoded
Currently, many SW software applications still rely on hardcoded services often due to
inheritance from legacy IT systems. In hardcoded software, the data is directly inputted into the
source code of SW software, instead of obtaining data from the common data repository.