Internal Environment

Benoni Katende

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The organisations that are thriving in 2022 are the ones that have mastered the agility to respond to changes in the environment and craft relevant and compelling digitally enabling customer propositions.

DIGITAL ACCELERATION AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES

 

Through the Fund’s deliberate and accelerated digitisation strategy and upgraded IT infrastructure, it is well placed to continue thriving in response to the above forces and the newfound freedom in its ability to innovate around multiple products relevant to the East African market. The NSSF Amendment Act has opened a plethora of possibilities for innovation, that we believe will drastically enhance the lives of our current and future customers as we utilise our key competencies to exploit the opportunities.

Organisational redesign

FY2021/22 was uniquely challenging for the Fund given the operating environment highlighted above. The evolving and challenging business environment coupled with unprecedented regulatory changes necessitated a reorientation of the Fund’s strategic direction to ensure business continuity and sustainability. This was in part achieved through undertaking several initiatives as follows:

Enhancement of Information Technology Systems and Infrastructure:

During the year, the Fund launched the Pension Administration System, dubbed OctoPAS. It was acquired to fill major service delivery gaps identified in the Fund’s core business processes that were not adhering to key principles of customer-centric service delivery.

Review of our Business Model:

This is to align with new business needs due to changes brought about by the NSSF Amendment Act 2022.

Organisational redesign

Aimed at putting in place an agile structure that is responsive to the ever-evolving external environment and business needs.

The Fund partnered with Deloitte Uganda to carry out the redesign exercise. It involved detailed discussions with all the stakeholders, i.e., the Board, Exco, and staff, to obtain their input and ideas on the optimal structure for the Fund. This enabled alignment and buy-in for all the relevant stakeholders. The redesign was concluded with a new agile structure allowing the Fund to form squads to design and develop products and benefits to meet member demands. In addition, the structure eliminated duplicated roles and created new roles for staff to take advantage of.



Major highlights from the redesign exercise include:

The proposed changes from the organisational redesign exercise will be implemented in the subsequent year. Updates regarding this exercise will be disclosed in subsequent reports.

Change management

A communication plan was put in place to update staff about the progress and implications of the change. Several engagements were held at various levels of the transition. These were done in the form of town halls involving all staff being addressed by the Managing Director with an emphasis on the three aspects below:

What
the change is

The change hinged significantly on the NSSF Act and the technology to support the widening member coverage. This implied that the structure had to adapt to the new business needs.

Why
the change

The Fund had to reorganise its business model to facilitate the new mandate that the NSSF Act has created of close to 23 million new members.

How the change would be implemented

A cross-sectional engagement was adopted for internal and external stakeholders to provide the necessary information at each process stage. In addition, internal staff representatives were appointed to help with the change implementation.

Staff training

An assessment of the skills of the future was held, and three critical areas were identified to kick start the new business model:

Recognised institutions were identified to facilitate this training. Over 82 staff have been enrolled on the reskilling plan, and these will later be deployed in the new structure.

Refer to the Chairman’s Statement, Managing Director’s Statement, Chief Investment Officer Business Review and Risk and Opportunity Management Report for a detailed account of the impact of the external environment on the Fund.