Transformative thinking, transformative doing
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-17-03-2017-B004 |
Date | 01 April 2017 |
Published date | 01 April 2017 |
Pages | 373-401 |
Author | Sebastian Chua |
Subject Matter | Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management,Government,Economics,Public Finance/economics,Texation/public revenue |
JOURNAL OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT, VOLUME 17, ISSUE 3, 373-401 FALL 2017
TRANSFORMATIVE THINKING, TRANSFORMATIVE DOING
Sebastian Chua*
ABSTRACT. In recent years, Health Promotion Board (HPB) has made a
strategic shift from a traditional health education approach to an eco-
systemic approach in health promotion, where the Board engages and
harnesses the collective power of the 3 Ps (People, Private, and Public). The
procuring of core services is a key enabler to support HPB’s focus areas in
tobacco control, mental well-being, health screening, obesit y prevention,
nutrition, dietetic services, c hronic disease educat ion, etc. In tandem with
the Board’s strategic shift, the procurement function has taken on strategic
importance and is now funct ioning as an independent department, reporting
to HPB’s CEO. Fundamentally, HPB Procurement Department has changed
the way it interacts with the business as it stands by the belief that the real
procurement value goes beyond compliance (Caldwell & Howard, 2010).
“Proper”, “simpler”, “faster”, “closer” and “cheaper” are now its mantra for
procurement excellence. The objective of this paper is to highlight the
transformation journey that HPB’s Procurement Department undertook to
deliver the results, impact and value to the stakeholders.
INTRODUCTION
The Health Promotion Board (HPB) was established as a Statutory
Board under the Ministry of Health, Singapore with the vision of
building “A Nation of Healthy People”. It spearheads national health
education, promotion and disease prevention programmes as well as
creates a health-supportive environment. It actively reaches out to
the healthy, the at-risk and the unhealthy at all stages of life –
children, youths, adults and older residents through wide-ranging
programmes such as nutrition, mental health, physical activity,
tobacco control and communicable disease education. It also
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* Sebastian Chua, CPM, BA, Diploma in Economics, is currently the Head of
Procurement at the Health Promotion Board (HPB), a Statutory Board under
the Ministry of Health, Singapore.
Copyright © 2017 by PrAcademics Press
374 CHUA
promotes healthy ageing, integrated health screening, and chronic
disease education and management.
Within the health landscape, the Singapore Burden of Disease
Study 2010 (Epidemiology & Disease Control Division, Ministry of
Health, Singapore, 2014) showed that non-communicable diseases
(NCDs) are a major contributor to ill health, and nearly a quarter of
this burden is attributable to modifiable lifestyle risk factors including
obesity, cigarette smoking and physical inactivity. Coupled with the
challenges of an ageing population and lifestyles that are increasingly
dependent on modern conveniences that promote sedentary living, it
is projected that the burden of disease from NCDs will grow
exponentially.
In order to make a stronger impact to health outcomes and
healthy behaviours by orders of magnitude, HPB has to go beyond its
traditional approach of public education to implementing pervasive
and affordable healthy living ecosystems across the nation where
citizens study, work, live and play. While HPB has experimented with
various prototypes and achieved some early successes in past years,
the challenge lies in scaling-up and ensuring sustainability. Thus, as
the national driver for health promotion and disease prevention, it
cannot be business as usual for HPB.
In the next lap of HPB’s Excellence Journey towards the Board’s
Vision Story of “Healthy Living Every Day”, HPB has evolved its
strategies, operating models, and built new capabilities. This reflects
the purposeful shift of HPB’s work from mainly education to
environmental changes and programmes that influence and effect
behaviour change in a sustained way. HPB adopted an eco-systemic
approach where the Board engages and harnesses the collective
power of the 3Ps (People, Private, Public) partners to co-create the
choice architecture, and a diverse ecosystem of healthier options for
sustaining healthy living.
Complementing this strategic shift, HPB has also aligned its
internal Business and People systems with a view to improve
execution quality, focus resources and capabilities, and enable
greater teamwork and collaboration. The organisational capabilities
were re-aligned to the HPB value chain where organisational
competencies were consolidated and resources focused towards the
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