Application of Ict in business operations: A case study of business registrations and licensing agency (brela) online business formalization

Abstract

In Tanzania, like in many countries in the world, in order for a business undertaking to be formalized it is required to pass through different Government Authorities or institutions for it to be either registered or licensed. Most of these Authorities or institutions do discharge their duties by implementing various laws which they administer. Most of these laws, if not all which were inherited from the colonialists, were very old and outdated lacked the electronic service delivery aspect. These laws were enacted according to the technological developments, actual environment of those times basing on hard paper mode of service delivery. The Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA) is one of the said Government Institutions where the process of business formalization starts. BRELA’s main mandates include the registration of Companies, Business Names, Trade Marks, Service Marks, granting of Patents and issuance of dustrial and Group ‘A’ Business Licenses. BRELA just like many other Government institutions in Tanzania, has for a long time been discharging its duties using paper-based systems. This as it has been stated before, was because of the prevailing situation but also the laws and level of technology existing during that time. Despite some few success stories during the paper based service delivery era, generally, the paper-based systems had been posing a lot of challenges to these institutions in their applications, because of the outdated technology used. Some of the challenges were:- Loss of records (paper documents, files and registers). Delays in decision making caused by the physical movement of files from one office to another. Unnecessary operational costs caused by purchases of too many stationery and need of having huge office space for file storage. To offset these challenges, in 2016 BRELA also slowly started to use ICT by developing a mini and local system called ‘Online Business Names Registration System’ (OBRS) used for registration of Business Names. The success stories experienced from this locally made system are the ones which inspired BRELA to dream of delivering the rest of its remaining services online, the dream which came true in 2017 when all its services went online after development of the ‘Online Registration System’ (ORS). ORS has been integrated with other Government nstitutions such as the National Identification Authority (NIDA), Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) for issuance of Companies’ Tax Identification Numbers (TIN). In 2018 the issuance of Group ‘A’ Business Licences service which was formerly being offered by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and transferred to BRELA also went online, this lead to all registrations and licensing services offered by BRELA to become online On top of the technical services offered to the public, in 2020 BRELA also internally started to use a Government-owned pre-viewing and filing ICT system called ‘e-office’ for making various administrative decisions within the institution instead of using human to traditionally carry the paper files from one office to another. I believe we are all aware of the well-known saying that “TIME IS MONEY simply meaning that time has value just like money. Time wasted without any productive activity is like wasting a property worth a lot of money. The ICT pplication in business operations if properly done contributes a lot in business, individual and ultimately the national economy growth as a whole, specific benefits being, but not limited to:- Time reduction in attending issues, hence saving time which can be used for other useful and productive activities; Cost reduction as people do not need to travel from one place to another to seek for the services. The saved costs can be used to do some other investment and boost the individual and national economy; several systems Integration (eg. BRELA/NIDA/TRA) making several services to be obtained at one stop rather than physically moving from one place to another; Reduction or elimination of corruption solicitation ossibility as the service provider and receiver do not physically meet; Transparency and efficiency in performance as all the processes, time taken and responsible persons are clearly and easily traceable; Business environment improvement; Cost reduction in stationery purchases and office space rentals; and Multiple attendance of one issue – An admistrative file can be attended by several persons at a time instead of wasting time to wait for one to finish his task. Apart from encountered normal challenges, application of ICT in all business operations is nowadays inevitable. All institutions or entities, public or private should strive to make sure that they use ICT in conducting their operations so as to reduce their operational costs, win more customers and continue to exist.