Business Processes Reengineering and Change Management in Public Sector: A case of Implementing an Integrated Financial Management Information System (lFMIS) in the Ministry of Finance-Kenya

Abstract

The Government of Kenya through the ministry of finance has been implementing IFMIS from the year 2003 which is intended to bring sanity in public spending. The project is intended to cover budgeting, accounts, procurement, asset management and projects management modules. Currently only the accounts and procurement modules have been implemented in all the accounting units. Implementation is done in a phased approach. The accounting modules of the project are aimed at increasing efficiency of the accounting services, timely reporting and integrating all its business functions. Efficiency and accountability has presented themselves as major challenges across all public expenditure entities. It is for these reasons that ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) vendors like Oracle and SAP amongst others have come up with solutions that are meant to address these problems. The study focused on examining how IFMIS has managed Business Process Re¬engineering (BPR) on the accounting operations in government and challenges faced in the process of change management. In addition, the research seeks to establish how to manage change as a result of business process re-engineering. Specifically, the study examined the aims and objectives of the IFMIS in determining whether the system is addressing the problems it was meant to solve. The study used descriptive and exploratory research methods. The respondents were drawn from three departments in the Ministry of Finance, who are the key users in the accounting unit. The study established that business process re-engineering, change management; top management support and development of an implementation plan are critical success factors in ERP implementation. The implementation of IFMIS led to an increase in work efficiency due to increased accountability and work done within the time limit.