Business Operations
Strategy
Road Map
Guatemala
Business Operations Strategy
Guatemala
________________________________________________________________________________
BOS BACKGROUND
UN General Assembly and Economic and Social Council resolutions have repeatedly called for the
UN system to harmonize business operations, with the aim of reducing operational transaction costs
and duplication of the operational support to programme delivery. For this purpose, the UN
Development Group (UNDG) High Level Committee on Management (HLCM) was mandated to work
with UNCTs to improve programme and business operations. In this context, the Secretary-General,
through a study involving experts at the country level, unveiled the need for results-based planning
and monitoring activities to strengthen strategic thinking and prioritization of harmonization efforts
with a focus on the highest value added. The Business Operations Strategy (BoS) was created in
2012 as the UNDG response to these needs and requests.
BoS is a voluntary framework focusing on joint business operations, allowing UNCTs to take a
strategic and results-oriented approach to planning, management and implementation of
harmonized business operations in a country. BoS is a flexible and strategic tool, allowing for UNCTs
to focus on contextual and specific programmatic needs, while providing an easy-to-use monitoring,
evaluation and reporting system to manage joint operations. In this sense, BoS should provide
operations staff of UN agencies with the same strategic planning and monitoring focus that is
offered for programme activities through the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
As BoS is a part of the UNDG framework focused on enhancing functioning of the UN system at the
country level, it is an essential tool to strengthen the linkages between business operations and
programme delivery, particularly for a Delivering as One (DaO) countries and emerging Delivery as
One countries such as Guatemala. The Operations Management Team (OMT) will take the lead on
behalf of the UNCT to draft, implement, monitor and evaluate the BoS in collaboration with the
UNDG.
WHAT IS BOS
 BoS is a VOLUNTARY instrument, which can be used in full or in parts, allowing for better linkages
with UNDAF,
 BoS ONLY COVERS JOINT BUSINESS OPERATIONS INITIATIVES ,
 BoS provides STRATEGIC AND MEDIUM -TERM (UNDAF CYCLE) FOCUS AND PRIORITIZATION based on
quantitative and qualitative cost and benefit analysis,
 BoS provides the FRAMEWORK FOR MONITORING AND REPORTING on progress and results of
business operations,
 BoS provides the FRAMEWORK FOR RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND MOBILIZATION at country level.
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Business Operations Strategy
Guatemala
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WHY BOS?
The Business Operations Strategy supports the development of harmonized business operations,
and achievement of the following results:
 ENHANCED LINKAGES BETWEEN PROGRAMMES AND OPERATIONS : By analyzing the programme
strategy through an operational lens and identifying the operations activities required to deliver
the programmatic support, the linkages between programme and operations are established.
As both UNDAF and BoS are on the same cycle, it enhances the linkages between UNDAF and
UN operations support.
 REDUCED COSTS: BoS provides a strategic focus on operational support services and initiatives
aimed at harmonizing and/or simplifying business operations. It allows for multi-year planning
of operations and facilitates strategic planning of the operational effort. It also facilitates
monitoring and evaluation of operational efforts at the country level. It focuses on reduced lead
times to execute processes through streamlining operational process, and reduced direct
monetary costs by leveraging system-wide volumes to bargain when procuring goods and
services. Harmonized work processes, elimination of the duplication of business initiatives, and
reduced transactions costs for the UN and its partners are some of the few benefits of BoS
implementation.
 ENHANCED QUALITY : By jointly procuring services in larger volumes, the UN increases its
bargaining power with service providers and enhances its ability to monitor and evaluate overall
quality of service delivery.
 ENHANCED OPERATIONAL FOCUS AND PRIORITIZATION: Instruments like cost benefit analysis,
transaction cost analysis and business process analysis provide light, easy-to-use tools to
identify and prioritize high impact harmonization initiatives, and facilitate monitoring and
evaluation of harmonization initiatives against pre-established baselines.
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Business Operations Strategy
Guatemala
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WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE BOS?
The Business Operations Strategy has three components:
 BUSINESS OPERATIONS RESULTS FRAMEWORK, reflecting medium-term outcomes and outputs in
line with the UNDAF cycle,
 MONITORING AND EVALUATION FRAMEWORK, reflecting outcome and output level indicators,
allowing for monitoring and evaluation of the impact of business operations,
 MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS OF UN BUSINESS O PERATIONS, outlining the way the UN organizes
itself in order to deliver cost effective operational support that meets programme requirements.
A typical BoS includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION: Sets the context of BoS.
 Chapter 2: OPERATIONS ANALYSIS: Defines the
results focus and prioritizes the results areas according to
the outcome of costs and benefit analysis for each
suggested business solution.
 Chapter 3: BUSINESS OPERATIONS RESULTS
FRAMEWORK: Translates the business solutions to specific
result statements (outcomes, outputs) and also suggests
a required budget per outcome/output.
 Chapter 4: BUSINESS OPERATIONS MONITORING,
EVALUATION AND REPORTING : Defines outcome and output
level indicators, targets and baselines.
 Chapter 5: BUSINESS O PERATIONS GOVERNANCE
MECHANISMS: Describes the existing decision making and reporting relationships under the BoS.
From the UNCT to the OMT to the Functional or Technical Working Groups.
 Chapter 6: BUSINESS OPERATIONS BUDGETARY F RAMEWORK: Describes the resource requirements,
including a resource map of existing resources, the resource gap and a resource mobilization
strategy.
 Chapter 7: OPERATIONALIZING THE BUSINESS OPERATIONS STRATEGY: Outlines the implementation
of BoS through work planning, including the concepts of integrated (OMT) work plan and the
use of the standardized MoU for Common Services.
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Business Operations Strategy
Guatemala
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ROAD MAP: BOS GUATEMALA
Guatemala has made great progress prioritizing existing
services to be harmonized, pooled and jointly strengthen in
support of all agency operations. Although most progress is
concentrated in common procurement practices, common
ICT and audit, the topic on common premises is constantly
discussed, in order to expand the scope of harmonization
areas. Travel, security, cleaning, HACT and translation
services are just a few examples of successful LTAs that are
currently being used by several agencies. To this day, 10
agencies share two common promises and benefit from a
least 17 common services and LTAs. Agencies outside this
two common premises participate in the OMT and
participate in common services LTAs to a varying degree.
Going forward, the use of a structured framework (BoS) will
provide the needed strategy to simplify business operations,
planning, and identification of cost benefits allowing fact
based decision making and prioritization. OMT will focus on
three broad areas:
 COST ANALYSIS of the current joint business operations and LTAs. Analysis will include not only
potential cost savings but also time saved. Cost analysis was not conducted for the current joint
activities; however, most of the current LTAs and services were developed based on the
assumption that having common LTAs and shared services, in the case of the UN joint
compound, would save resources -both time and financial. At this point, it is necessary to review
the cost-benefit of the current services, evaluate what should continue, where improvements
can be made and what is not beneficial to the majority of the agencies.
 NEW SERVICES. Additional services and areas of cooperation will also be part of the analysis in
order to improve harmonization efforts. The areas to be explored will include common
administration services, ICT services, business continuity, amongst others.
 SUPPORT TO UNDAF IMPLEMENTATION. It is of outmost importance that a consistent link between
programme and operations is created in order to efficiently support UNDAF implementation.
UNDP and UNFPA attended the ToT workshop in Panama in 2015 in order to enhance CO capacity
for the development and implementation of Common Business Operations Harmonization
initiatives. The commitment is to complete the BOS Framework before the end of the year through
a series of workshops and on-hand trainings. The BoS will be drafted with the full participation of
the OMT and submitted to UNCT for approval.
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Business Operations Strategy
Guatemala
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SUPPORT REQUIRED FROM UNDG
For BoS adoption and implementation, OMT will seek the support -if necessary from UNDG Common
Services Reference Group, and will be in close communication with UNDG/DOCO during the whole
process. Teleconference with key UNDG/DOCO have been made for possible technical support, best
practices and quality assurance.
MILESTONES
ESTIMATED RESOURCES
Item
Quantity
Context
1 Workshops
3
Workshops to be held in different agencies,
where space is available (1 full day each).
2 Retreat
1
3 UNDG/DOCO Expert
1
Description
US$
Lunch/coffee
500.00
Development of BoS Framework (2 full
days).
DSA
2,800.00
Consultant (if required).
DSA
2,000.00
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