Introduction

    The State Public Sector Information Technology Master Plan (ITMP) undertakes to lay the foundation for transforming the operations of the public sector through the strategic deployment of information technology (IT). It is intended as an advisory and guiding document that charts the overall direction towards which the government can pursue in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of its delivery of services; while at the same time strengthening the decision making process. This is aimed at enhancing the international competitiveness of the state and improving the standards of living of the people.

    In view of the rapid advancement in information technologies, the ITMP should be treated as a dynamic document which needs to be reviewed and revised every two years, or even annually. This is particularly so with respect to the technology portion of the plan. The frequency of review and revision is very much dependent on the needs and changes that have occurred at the material time.
 

Vision and Objectives

    In line with the vision of the Sabah IT Council, the strategic vision of the ITMP is to achieve administrative renewal and bring the state closer to its citizens through a fully electronic government by the year 2002. As such, the mission of the ITMP is to facilitate the reinvention of the government through strategic deployment of information and multimedia technologies. In this respect, the objectives of the ITMP can be expressed as, among others:

• to facilitate the creation of an information-rich society
• to facilitate the creation of a knowledge-driven economy
• to improve the effectiveness of achieving socio-economic development objectives
• to bring about a radically improved standard of living
• to enable access to public services at "anytime, anywhere, anyhow"
• to utilise multimedia technologies for a paperless administration
• to enable communications and interactions through electronic and multimedia channels
• to facilitate the creation of electronic commerce

    The terms of reference of the ITMP are:

• Reviewing existing guidelines and policies that encourage, guide, or inhibit the deployment of IT in support of the functions of the state government.
• Assembling and organising an inventory of existing and available IT resources, to include hardware, software, organisational processes and procedures, and personnel, both within the state government and in the private sector.
• Charting the direction and establishing the strategic targets towards which the state government aspires to align itself with the IT2000 Strategic Action Plan, Outline Perspective Plan of Sabah (OPPS) and Vision 2020.
• Identifying the critical gaps between the current situation and these targets.
• Identifying and prioritising the strategies in filling the gaps between now and the aspired targets.
• Determining the resource requirements to achieve the targets.
• Formulating IT deployment, utilisation and information sharing policies.
• Assisting the state in the development of a Strategic Direction Statement for the use of computers and telecommunications technologies to support its operations.
• Formulating an action plan for the implementation of the master plan that includes strategy, programmes, projects, priority, time frame and resource requirement.
• Identifying potential obstacles, including legal and institutional, to the successful implementation of the plan.
• Assisting the state and its vendors in the design and implementation of a system that will demonstrate and prove the main ideas in the Strategic Direction Statement.

                    Volume 2: Technical Report
                            Chapter 1: Evolution of Information Technologies
                            Chapter 2: Sabah ITMP Models
                            Chapter 3: Infrastructural Services
                            Chapter 4: Computing and Storage Technologies
                            Chapter 5: Service Access
                            Chapter 6: Security
                            Chapter 7: Future Directions
                            Chapter 8: IT Management
                            Chapter 9: Performance Measurement
                            Chapter 10: Technology Acquisition
                            Chapter 11: Proposed Systems and Applications
                            Chapter 12: Implementation Strategy
 

    Volume 1 analyses the current status of IT resources in the public sector in an effort to determine the strengths and weaknesses present. The external environment is also scanned to identify opportunities and threats to the state, and in particular to the successful implementation of the ITMP. These exercises have provided the background to the formulation of the various strategies and actions necessary to transform the operations of the public sector.

    Volume 2 discusses the various available and emerging technologies, and the infrastructure model that would be useful for the implementation of the ITMP. It also identifies the technologies and structures needed to create an electronic government.
 

Environmental Scanning

    In this era, knowledge is the key to the success of a country, organisation or individual. Countries that possess the capabilities to generate and apply knowledge has a better than average chance to prosper. The key enabling tool for this scenario is affordable and readily available information technologies.

    Advancements in technology, communications and transportation have created the borderless world, where almost anything can be made anywhere and sold anywhere else. This has resulted in the globalisation of the world economy. A scenario that has created both opportunities and threats to developed and developing countries alike. As a result, change has become the norm, the only constant. Tapscott and Caston [1993:1] best describe the rapid pace of change occurring around the world:

    Information technology is likely to drastically change the way we live, work and play. As the people embrace the new technologies, their expectations of the government will change accordingly. This change in expectation will place a greater burden on the government to efficiently and effectively deliver its services. Table E1 summarises the major opportunities and threats to the state after scanning the environment.

    The government structure, as it stands today, was created in an effort to manage the industrial era. This structure is considered obsolete in today?s environment, as it does not provide the capability to respond quickly to changing needs of the society, the economy and the people. It is liken to a super tanker navigating through a winding river - slow and cautious. Nevertheless, the strategic deployment of appropriate technologies provides the opportunity to reinvent the government. This will result in drastically improved service delivery, facilitating the creation of an internationally competitive economy. Information technology has been identified as the key strategic enabling tool for the whole exercise. Before proceeding further, a review of the current IT capacities of the government was conducted, and the result is summarised in Table E2.

    The Human Resource Development Bureau is the key organisation responsible for training government officers. Computer training is among the many courses that the HRBD offers. In view of the lack of qualified trainers and appropriate facilities, the HRDB only conducts 10 computer training courses a year. The maximum capacity it can cater is about 800 if the course is conducted back-to-back throughout the year.

    The IT literacy rate of the more senior officers are relatively lower as compared to their junior counterparts. This is so because the junior officers are of the younger generations, most of whom have already been exposed to IT during their studies.

    For ease of reference, Table E3 summarises the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with respect to the state of IT in Sabah.

Critical Gaps

    The critical gaps as identified can be categorised into three major domains - policy, technology and human resource. Table E4 summarises these gaps with their respective domains.
 
 

Possible Risk Factors

    Organisations often abandon IT projects that fail to accomplish their intended objectives, or because those objectives change before the project goes online. Government agencies often appear to have even more trouble than the private sector in successfully applying new technology. This is because the policy choices and management processes that are inherent in government create special challenges for IT managers, and add several risks that are unique to the public sector. These common hazards, only a few of which are technical in nature, act as barriers to the success of IT innovation and present a serious challenge to public managers who are responsible for choosing, funding, and building new systems. These hazards are summarised as shown in Table E5.

Recommendations

    The recommended strategies and their respective actions are formulated to breach the critical gaps in reaching the targets set forth in the ITMP. These strategies and actions are summarised in Table E6. It should be noted that the numbers corresponding to the actions do not denote the priorities of the said action. they are meant for ease of reference only. The prioritised actions are presented in Figure E1.

Action Plan

    There are four main stages to the deployment of ITMP. Each stage provides immediate value and prepares the way for the following stage (see Figure E2). Table E7 summarises the areas of focus, actors and technology needed to complete the various stages of implementation. Table E8 identifies the technology-user pairs for actions, and Table E9 determines the roles and responsibilities of the key actors.
 
 

Implementation Machinery

    As the client to the ITMP and the secretariat to the Sabah IT Council, the Science and Technology Unit (STU) should be designated and empowered as the chief initiating and implementing agent of the plan. The STU shall carry out these responsibilities in close consultation with the Working Committee on IT Deployment in the Public Sector of the Sabah IT Council. (The same Committee also serves as the Steering Committee to the ITMP.) Special task forces comprising technical personnel from relevant parties shall be formed under the purview of the Working Committee to tackle technical issues that may arise. Examples of such task forces may include, among others, IT utilisation policy, IT training, network administration policy, process reinvention, IT standards, etc. Figure E3 depicts the machinery necessary to implement the ITMP successfully.

 
Role of STU

    As the lead actor, the STU is the focal point in implementing the ITMP. Specifically, the STU shall:

• implement and/or initiate the implementation of the strategies and actions recommended in the ITMP
• co-ordinate the activities of the other key actors
• determine the level of funding required for the successful implementation of the ITMP
• monitor the progress of implementation by various actors and where necessary determine more effective ways to accelerate the implementation process
• conduct regular reviews and updates of new and emerging technologies that may affect the implementation of the ITMP
• revise the ITMP accordingly as technology advance
• undertake, or jointly undertake IT-related R&D activitie