Challenges To Defence Management




Challenges To Defence Management

Having see be the various important aspects of Defence management and the peculiar circumstances in which military leadership must be applied, we shall now discuss the challenges facing the military decision maker with specific reference to the indian military environment.

Pressure to Optimize. In any nation, particularly a developing economy like ours, few years has st there is a maximum limit on resources, which can be spent on defence. In our context defence spending over the last few years has stabilized at about 2.5 percent of GDP. Thus in real terms, the allocation for defence has actually remained constant. On the other hand, there is the obvious requirement of modernization of defence forces, demanding mobilization of additional resources. This implies that there is now a basic requirement of optimizing resources for force maintenance (Revenue expenditure). Only then shall we be able to spend more towards acquisitions and modernization is accentuated due to the rising costs of high end technologies. Finally, defence forces are no more a 'holy cow'. The management of defence is coming increasingly coming under media public scrutiny, forcing the decision makers to be more accountable than in the past. We therefore seriously need to be cost conscious and be willing to apply modern management techniques for resource optimization.

Restructuring and Change Management. The strategic compulsions have forced us to undertake restructuring of the armed forces in certain critical areas. The establishment of Hq Integrated Defence staff and the two integrated commands are the most glaring examples. The range and depth of such restructuring will only increase in the near future as a result of the combination of strategic as well as economic imperatives. Some of the critical issues which can no longer be ignored are: synergizing the training, logistics and operational infrastructure within and between the services, eliminating duplication of efforts/resources, cutting down on the mouse 'noncore' areas by outsourcing and even Private Finance Initiatives, defence industry cooperation, and indigenisation to minimize dependence on foreign technologies. thereby is obviously a vast room for restructuring in all these and other such areas. It is axiomatic that these changes would entail substantial financial, psychological and social costs. Management of change is thus a major challenges before the military leadership. Military Leadership should seriously conceptualised, plan and design these changes in order to ensure commitment of stake holders and bring about attitudinal changes for successful change implementation.