Police Institutions Strategies by Tarek Samaha, Pioneering and Business Strategy Consultant, Dubai-UAE
Strategy in general is a military term in the first place and means a war plan. It is a word that was originally used in military life and its meanings evolved until it became the art of military leadership in the confrontation of difficult circumstances and calculating the different possibilities therein and choosing the main suitable means for it.
The strategy has no equivalent in the Arabic language and is translated in its original form from the Greek language (Stratēgos). The two-words derivative (Stratos) is a command which refers to (the military leader) during the Greek era, and its meaning from its original source gives us some indications for its definition such as: (Shrewd military maneuver to mislead, deceive, surprise or surprise the enemy to achieve victory).
A comprehensive definition of the writings of the nineteenth century military leaders like: Winter, Hart, Molinka, and Bouver, can be summarized as (The art of distributing and using battles with military means and forces to achieve the goals of war set by politics).
It is worth noting that the strategy was the preserve of senior military leaders, such as what happened in China and Japan, It was characterized by secrecy, privacy, and sufficiency in the minds of leaders without codifying its intellectual style.
Unfortunately, the military leader’s vision of the events, their importance and classification, and his choice of the appropriate means was not written down, which lead to a lack of clarity in the meaning of the word, and their misunderstanding resulted in a philosophical and intellectual ignorance, which took many military leaders into war, knowing that strategy does not mean war and does not mean the use of force, but rather, it means threatening to use force to achieve goals. A strategy is the choice of today that will affect tomorrow’s results, and any term related to the strategy means that its planning is not less than three years as a minimum in the business sector, including policies, methods, plans and approaches.
The development of Police institution strategies:
The term police is defined as the people “maintaining security in the country.” This shows us the importance of linking the police’s work and its basis, which is preserving security. Therefore, the first and main approach of any security institution is to maintain security in the short or long term. This is their primary work.
Previously, The police institutions carried the military character and were distinguished in our current time, so that we also have the civilian police, who do not appear in a military image/uniform, but rather civilian individuals who take into account the geographical locations in which they work, such as beaches, archaeological sites, roads, and transportation, etc.
And they show the community that they are police and security personnel whom duty is to maintain the security clearly and they differ from secret informants who wear civilian clothes and do not reveal their identities, and their goal is to uncover crimes before they occur through their spontaneous integration into society and cannot be distinguished from others, and to transfer news and what is circulated to regulatory agencies To ensure that no future crimes occur, in addition to detecting crimes that occurred and whose perpetrator has not been disclosed, they are considered one of the most important bodies operating in police institutions and the main hub for it.
In line with social developments and parallel to the aspirations of clients, traffic police have been developed in the internal and external roads, to maintain road security and reduce traffic accidents, and all tools and devices have been developed to monitor those who violate the road traffic laws of drivers and users.
To facilitate the participation of other government agencies responsible for the boarders, all boarders police have been developed in the sea, air and land, to ensure the highest levels of security and safety are achieved and to prevent infiltrators and traffickers from entering the secured society.
To ensure internal security, a focus was placed on hotspots, most of which are places where people can gather if they are in sensitive activities or excursions, on the basis of which specialized police bodies have been developed to secure these activities or facilities, and police institutions have worked in cooperation with the relevant government agencies to develop the system of police early intervention in such cases where a specialist rescue is needed.
If we look closely, you will find that the police institutions are not only responsible for the implementation of the law, but rather were formed to avoid the occurrence and recurrence of crimes, which is very important, thus, prison administration and punitive institutions have been entrusted to the police institutions, as well as police stations in various geographical locations in the country have been developed to serve Customer expectations and meet their needs.
And to have such institutional entities with the capable police staff who is able to meet and implement these aspirations & duties, schools, institutes, colleges and police universities have been developed around the world, and several countries in this field have excelled such as Britain, America, Norway, Sweden and other countries who have special institutes for a written and practical police training & education. Dubai Police has excelled by having its’ Dubai Police Academy, especially to teach and train police officers to deal with people and society in a distinct way in the future.
This great development over the years with various security services takes us to the importance of developing the police work/roadmap strategy in different countries, and the similarity of its strategic goals, and thus, measuring its performance and competition amongst them are the factors that any police leadership must think about, especially if the main goal is to provide security and safety for the society , Which is considered one of the most important variables that are constantly evolving, especially today, the era of speed and the Internet, “the electronic web” and the increase in global electronic communication channels, and the hidden black electronic market, which creates a great opportunity for criminals in the execution of humanitarian crimes locally and globally without control, despite all attempts to deter them.
Here comes the next question. How can we develop a strategic police security institution document? This includes vision, mission, strategic directions and goals, and how do we measure their effectiveness and efficiency? What are the best innovative global methods for that? What are the best global police practices that have been applied in this matter?
The development of the strategic document for any institution with its different activities, depends on some steps. The most important of which is focusing on the needs of customers and the concerned society with this strategy, as the mechanism for developing strategies that were developed by Palladium International Company, and represented by the (Kaplan and Norton) global from Harvard University, which was built on determining strategic directions based on four axes, as indicated in the Balanced Scorecard:
1. The first axis: Customers and society
2. The second axis: human capital
3. The third axis: financial efficiency
4. Fourth axis: operational processes
Several police agencies have applied this system globally, such as the Royal Canadian Police in the year (2000) and the FBI – the United States of America in the year (2010); and the Dubai Police in the year (2011) in addition to many municipalities that have proven success in implementing and developing strategies and applications in management practices at global city level, for example: Charlotte in North Carolina (2000), Brisbane in Australia (2003), Corpus Christi in Texas – USA (2008).
In case we want to develop a police security strategy, we will follow these steps:
First: Defining the institutional vision that the security institution seeks to achieve in the future.
For example: Dubai Police vision – “police leadership for a safe city”, Scotland Police vision “sustainability in service and security excellence”, British police message 2025 “Achieving the Desired Transition in the Police Force”.
Second: Determining the institution’s mission, which explains what the institution is doing to ensure its vision is achieved.
For example: the San Francisco City Police message: “To achieve security with respect for all, we will work with everyone without bias and a rapid police response, to do so in a spirit of cooperation with society; we will work to maintain trust and respect and build them as trustees of constitutional and human rights”.
Third: Determine strategic directions:
We must first determine the customers and the society concerned with the strategy to determine strategic directions.
What is meant by the customers are the individuals who request the services directly from the service providers channels from the service institutions, if case it is done manually by visiting one of the service centers or electronically through the electronic web from the police agency’s website. It is always possible to classify them into several categories, for example (males, females, ages, requests, issues, etc.)
The internal customers are the employees of the concerned security institution, and determining their needs from a work environment, training and education is important, as well as can be classified into several classifications (for example: military, civilians, managers, executives, professionals, technicians and others).
What is meant by society are the people in the surrounding community that the police can serve and can feel safe and secured through it, and this community can also be classified for example: residents, visitors, citizens and other classifications.
Restricting the needs of these different entities based on the classifications to determine the strategic direction that the high leadership plans to follow is a very important aspect in developing strategies, and based on what has been defined globally. We have found that everyone shares the main strategic direction which is “achieving a sense of security and social security” Which should be considered as the first strategic direction – and it represents the operational axis.
The second strategic direction can be identified, as “the happiness of the community and the customers” – and it represents the axis of the customers and the society.
The third strategic direction: It could be “employee happiness and development of their abilities” – and it represents the human capital.
Other strategic directions are operational and administrative directions that police institutions must define in a way that suits them internally based on their various capabilities and the possibility of achieving them. Among the distinguished globally examples in defining its strategic directions, in the Arabian world: Dubai Police strategy, which included three directions: “community happiness”, “safe city” and “innovation in institutional capabilities”.
In the West: London City Police strategy includes three strategic directions: “focusing on what citizens care about,” joint and intensive work with partners and public entities, and “achieving the best outcomes in implementing justice and victim support”.
Fourth strategic direction: Defining strategic goals:
So, when we have a vision, mission and strategic directions, and to achieve these directions, the mechanism requires defining the strategic goals that the targeted goals for the concerned institutions in order to achieve them and thus, ensuring the achievement of strategic directions.
And these goals must be SMART goals, which keep up with the current and future era and what the leadership aspires to reach, where an analysis of the current situation and the planned situation should be made in the future, and here we can use the global quadrant analysis tool (SWOT), and (PESTEL) to identify external opportunities and challenges and Weaknesses and internal strength, and here we share some examples of the goals revealed in the strategic directions. The strategic objectives of the Dubai City Police, and the Scottish Police as in the following shapes:
DUBAI POLICE
Police Scotland, Annual Police Plan 2019/20. Please see page 7.
Fifth: Measurement and strategic follow-up:
“If we want to develop, we must measure our performance, there is no development without measurement” – Bill Gates
Successful institutions define ways to measure their results periodically, and develop the process of governance of the measurement process in a way that ensures that the leadership takes appropriate decisions based on the results presented, as the performance measurement process is considered an important tool in the process of development and continuous improvement, which is one of the most important principles that are followed by successful institutions in the public and private sectors. The global entities were distinguished by following the “balanced scorecard” method by measuring performance, which included the results of the four previously mentioned axes, as the results of (customers, human resources, financial efficiency, and operational processes), where each of these axes contains several smart indicators that are measured and followed up Internally by the leadership to ensure that its goals are achieved, and rates of improvement are achieved periodically, for example, the Royal Canadian Police, the USA police, and other global police agencies.
Sixth: The periodic review of the strategic documents:
In some years ago, London Business University did a study that showed that only 10% of companies worldwide only work on the review and update their strategies to keep up with the global technical development, and we have several examples of companies going bankrupt due to the lack of updating of their strategy to keep up with the future. For example, Kodak, Konica, Nokia and others, therefore the strategy annual review based on the measurement results and the requirements of customers and technological development is very crucial.
Among the distinguished examples in this regard, the Dubai Police has been noticed, which worked in line with the requirements of customers and the development of the Smart Police Center (SPS), which is considered as a global pioneer police center which would never been developed without human intervention, as this center provides more than 20 police services electronically for public, during visits to the various locations of the city of Dubai, which led to the Dubai police obtaining the best results in the happiness of customers in 2019 and winning several awards, and the story to be continued.
About the author 
Tarek Ahmed Samaha MBA, TQM, ISO-LA, CABM, APM, EFQM, DGEP, K&N.
Tarek is married with three children, living in Dubai from 2001 and in Gulf from 1996. He is Expert in Strategy, Balance Scorecards, HR, Business Excellence, Governance, Internal Audit and Risk Management with more than 24 years in ME and global experiences, Tarek starting writing and sharing in knowledge in different magazine and workshops which are being conducted by him in these different subjects, In 2019 Tarek had been chosen to be the Alumni Ambassador of University of Bradford in UAE.
Tarek is had MBA from University of Bradford and had two Bachelors in Management and Accounting, and different certifications in Strategy, Business Excellence and Quality and all different type of Audit as well as he does have certification in HR management. Tarek used to work in different local and international firms where he obtained different experiences and looking to share with the people the knowledge and best practices of different subjects.
In the current time, Tarek is working with Dubai Police, handling the position of Pioneering and Business Excellence Consultant as well as he is the Founder of ALMUQARANAH for Management Consulting and Development Company (Amman – Jordan).
Tarek had used to work in H.H. Shaikh M. Bin Rashid Executive Office – Dubai Government Performance Auditor which was unique position for one man show, by reviewing all the government departments strategies and achievements, as well as he used to work with Andersen and Ernst and Young Audit and Consulting firms, in 2005 he moved to work with Dubai Holding as an Business Auditor, in 2007 he joined Sama Dubai – one of Dubai Holding subsidiary company – as CPM Asst. Manager, in 2009 he had joined Dubai Municipality, handled the position Business Development specialist, before joing Dubai Police in 2018, he worked around five years in Road and Transport Authority of Dubai as an Chief specialist of HR Business Excellence and Strategy where he drafted his first book, which will be issued soon.
Tarek believes “that everyone must have his own strategy to achieve his strategic goals, otherwise he will part of the others strategies”.
Email: samahatarek@gmail.com
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