This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at La austeridad llega a la Administración

The austerity comes to the Administration

Eduard Arnau, commercial director of techno trends 10/05/2010

May 10, 2010

Long time we listen to political parties, experts in economics and economic institutions claim the need to drastically reduce public spending. A way to contribute to the achievement of this goal is the attempt to reduce costs, improve productivity and efficiency in most fields of public administration, while maintaining the operational efficiency of resources.

The introduction of technological solutions in the workplace has been facilitating and speeding up tasks, as well as increase productivity and reduce costs. However, we are still far from getting out all the these systems, even when the economic situation forces us to do so. In this sense, the reduction of spending on public administrations also passes through the use of effective tools.

Many of the travel and travel of the political leaders can be replaced by a correct use of technological tools as the telepresencia, a more advanced videoconferencing system that avoids unnecessary displacement, saves unproductive time, accelerates the processes of decisionimproves communication and reduces the emissions of CO₂, such as those that produce movements by road or airplane.

Use Telepresence and replace unnecessary meetings for virtual meetings of quality is one of the most simple and cost-effective forms of drastically reducing costs in public administration, where the instructions you dropped from the Ministry of economy on the adjustment of public enterprises (reduction of travel)(, meals and Protocol by 36 per cent) make it increasingly necessary to implement such solutions.

However, while many organizations already benefiting from the use of these solutions, there are still some myths and barriers of cultural type which are acting as a brake on the implementation of these tools, which are a new way of working and a different visual experience. The introduction and adoption of such systems implies set aside some prejudice, a strong dose of leadership and a clear will to innovation. A challenge and a real chance to the ability and willingness of development of public administration and their managers.