Of all the aspects of the Indian public sector nothing is more time consuming and ill-planed than data generation, both for internal record and external justification, let alone managerial control. If one were to judge the degree of managerial professionalism by the amount and degree of data it generates, then the public sector managements should win hands down. Data that are relevant and not so relevant, about every conceivable aspect of the organizational functioning, is scrupulously generated and reported to a number of monitoring agencies within and outside the organization, at periodic intervals. It is another matter how far this mountainous information is used.
The obvious justification for all this exercise in data generation is that the public sector is accountable to the public and parliament and it has to account or every inventory penny and production pounds. Everyone of some importance in the Government seems to require some data on each public sector undertaking. To start with, it is secretariat of the controlling Ministry which is supposed to closely monitor the undertaking’s working. Then there is the omnipotent Ministry of Finance which allocates the funds under Plan and non-Plan heads, and its permanent monitoring agency-the Bureau of Public Enterprises.
As if the Government’s monitoring is not enough there are countless parliamentary committees of various hues. Data have to be fed to these on aspects ranging from the implementation of Hindi as official language to the progress of tree plantation. Understandably, no data can be complete without the statistics relating to the employment status of the backward and scheduled castes in the organization. One may not be much off the mark, if one were to state that the top executive’s secretariat spends more time compiling the data ad framing these reports, than on other aspects of the organizational functioning,
Not to be outdone by these external agencies, the management for their part seek and obtain data for their own perception, down the line, thereby completing the data circle. Besides, no management can afford to opt out of managerial information systems in the organization. Though the systematic management requires data inputs for feedback and control purposes, it is imperative that the data is so designed as to serve the desired ends. Systems such as management by objectives underscore the importance of monitoring only the data pertaining to the vital few, leaving the trivial many. Somehow, somewhere this aspect is lost sight of, and it is the lack of emphasis on this count that makes the public sector data banks what they are-profusion of accounts but paucity of deposits.
The irony of the preponderance of data is that in the jumble of facts and figures the real issues get clouded by non-issues. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon more emphatically than the BPE reports that are submitted annually by all the public sector undertakings. The compartmentalized statistics and the innumerable parameters associated with these reports leave enough loopholes for camouflaging the issues that matter. Any rejoinder of a PSU to observations of the BPE on the inadequacy in performance in a given area can illustrate this.
-though there is a decline in production, owing of course to external factors, there is a marked savings in the transportation cost of finished goods!
-admittedly there is an increase in the inventory by value, but what about the decrease in the number of items, achieved as such by the disposal of surplus and non-moving spares!
-of course there is an uptrend in tour expenditure but notice the downtrend in the number of torus undertaken as such, with an attendant increase in the duration of the cumulative outstation stay of officials on tour!
For all that, these reports are among the very few that are ever analyzed, though not as systematically as one would desire. Most other efforts are not as fortunate in that they rarely, if ever, are graced by a pair of executive eyes. Their lot is generally consigned to well documented files to serve as management ornaments instead of managerial instruments.
Reports from branches
It is no exaggeration to suggest that a head office owes its power and prestige to its right of calling or reports from its branches. But the urge for form is only matched by the indifference to its contents. However, the system of collecting the reports nd documenting them is so perfected that if a given report is not receiving on the appointed day it is promptly noticed, and the defaulters are brought to book. It is another matter that in the very files under their nose are daily and monthly figures from which monthly and annual statistics can be computed. As managerial power emanates from data, managers are also accustomed to exercising it as a means of creating wok and keeping the staff-busy. The modus operandi is to seek one detail or the other, and it helps to keep the hapless staff in a perpetual quagmire of figures and percentages.
There is a lighter side to this otherwise drab affair. One of the more visible symbols of modern managerial status is the data display board. After the novelty wears off, most executives who in the meantime have got their managerial status established by other means lose sight of the very boards that were once after their dreams.
Every rule had its exceptions and there are some who do not lose heart so easily and persist with these boards till the very end. The author is privy to an amusing incident. A particular report, as per a given proforma, used to be submitted regularly to the head office of an organization by its four branches. There was a managerial change in one of the branches, and the new manager, when the report was put up for his signature, noticed that most of the data were irrelevant. He took the initiative and redesigned the proforma by letting most of the data fat off it, and continued reporting as per the altered proforma without anyone ever raising an eyelid. In due course, a couple of managers of the other branches got wise to the change and followed suit, more out of convenience than conviction. Soon, three out of the four branches were reporting in the new proforma, and when ultimately the difference was noticed it was the fourth branch that was pulled up for deviation and noncompliance!
Lack of trained manpower
In most organizations, there is lack of trained personnel capable of systematically designing the data inputs. Naturally this leads to the phenomenon known in computer language as “garbage in-garbage out”. Secondly, there is no trained manpower to understand the data parameters correctly so as to provide accurate information. This coupled with the inadequacy o staff to provide the required information, lads to faulty or misleading inputs. Lastly there is a dearth of experienced specialists who can analyze and interpret the data and thus provide useful pointers for managerial control. Unless these vital manpower and training needs of data processing are taken care of, any volume of information gathering will continue to be an exercise in futility.
