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The Red Cross is the largest aid organization in the world. In the Netherlands the Red Cross counts 675,000 members and donators, 34,000 volunteers and about 300 employees. To come to better decision making and be able to cope effectively with responsibilities, the Dutch Red Cross has a so-called ‘Atlas’: on the basis of a limited number of indicators, the departments and districts can be benchmarked. This calls for insight into the service to help invalids and the effort of volunteers, which is registered using web technology. Benefits of Bizzscore are efficient data extraction, benchmarking and management information on different organizational levels.
The Organization
The Nederlandse Rode Kruis (NRK) or Dutch Red Cross is an independent association that is part of the International Red Cross. The NRK has 675,000 members and donators. About 34,000 people are active as volunteer. The association has 355 local departments that work together in 73 districts.
The National Office in The Hague coordinates these tasks. About 300 employees work for the National Office. A number of tasks, such as aid to countries abroad and the coordination of disaster relief, is done in The Hague. But the most important task of the National Office is to support the districts and local departments.
The Challenge
To come to better decision making, to get a better insight into the effort of volunteers and the help provided in the local departments, as well as to report more effectively to stakeholders, the Dutch Red Cross wanted to automate an annual “Atlas”, a sort of scorecard with performance indicators with regard to the efforts and results of volunteers, funds recruitment and financial results per department. These indicators were to be consolidated automatically to the levels of districts and the national level. This meant that more than 17500 indicators and 440 Atlasses had to be automated. Because a registration system for relief was missing, this also needed to be developed.
The Pilot
In November 2004 a pilot was started to design, develop and implement a web-based Relief registration system containing the number of involved volunteers, worked hours and invalids that were helped, per district, per department, per coordinator, per activity. Because of the positive earlier experiences with EFM Software, this company was invited to develop a web application for this Relief Registration. EFM Software used its Bizzquality software in order to realize this. After an extensive internal promotion campaign and an experiment in four districts, it was decided to proceed with a further roll-out.
The Implementation
To shorten the implementation time needed, the Dutch Red Cross decided to use the entire Bizzscore environment during the roll-out. All indicators were therefore entered by means of Bizzdefiner. The indicators from the Relief registration system were completed with other financial and operational indicators. Also, a system was developed that automatically created indicators for any new (type of) relief or group of invalids to be aided. In this way, a single, automated central library of indicator definitions came to being. All data sources for the indicators were extracted using Bizzdata. Bizzscore dashboards were used as Atlasses, making it possible to use drill downs, multi-dimensional analyses and professional planning functionality. Furthermore, with one simple mouse click, monthly, quarterly and annual dynamic reports on all organizational levels could now be made, containing items such as the total amount of member’s fees, collection money, profits, funds needed and the total cost of aid.
The Business benefits
The Relief registration system in Bizzquality and database links in Bizzdata realized an efficient reporting process. By using Bizzdefiner as a central KPI library, the uniformity of definitions of indicators is guaranteed and easily managed. The possibilities to plan, benchmark and analyze trends in Bizzscore enhanced the quality of management information within the Dutch Red Cross on all different organizational levels. Leo van Gaal, Information manager of the Red Cross: “EFM Software is a sustainable company that we chose because of her track record in the field of developing solutions for performance measurement and the implementation of these kind of systems, not only for commercial companies but also for a wide range of other types of institutions. Furthermore, using their solution it is very easy to enter new and change existing indicators. In one word: Fantastic!!”
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