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StrategicPlanningforCustomsandBorderProtectionAgency.rtfStrategic Planning for Customs and Border Protection Agency 2
Strategic Planning for Customs and Border Protection Agency 1
Strategic Planning Document for the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency
A Strategic Planning Project Submitted
By
to
7 July 2019
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 3
Background of the Study 3
Statement of the Problem 4
Operational Definitions 7
Significance of the Study 7
Summary 8
C HAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Background
The Institute of Medicine (2013) characterizes strategic planning as having to do with the “direction” that an organization is headed over the next several years, which involves knowing how to reach the intended destination and criteria for knowing whether the organization got there. In this regard, strategic planning begins with a vision, mission and strategic objectives, and based on these a “directions” for the future (Perry, 2008). In turn, strategic planning informs strategic management, which entails a combination of destinations as well as actions originating in the “formulation, implementation and evaluation of plans” (Perry, 2008, p.13). However, it is important to note that strategic planning varies from one industry to another, but also from one organization to the next.
Essentially, strategic planning involves a consideration of many factors that are unique to an organization. The success of the implementation of a strategic plan entails a process for that implementation, but that begins by considering whether the organization has the capacity for the strategic plan. This is a consideration of the internal environment. Still, it is important to remember that an organization’s strategic plan is a prior framework for responding to forces that are without. In this regard, strategic planning involves predicting the future and considering potential changes in the external environment (Perry, 2008; Institute of Medicine, 2013). The essence of a strategic plan, therefore, is to reconcile the organization’s missions and strategic goals to realities in the external environment that it must encounter and deal with. The failure to reconcile the internal realities and mission ambitions become the reason for high rates of strategic planning failures, i.e. as much as 70% (Perry, 2008). On this note, the security industry also has its own environmental patterns to which security agencies in this case Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency (one of the operational and support components of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS]) must seek to respond to in their strategic plans.
Statement of the Problem
Smith and Brooks (2013) speak of a strategic security management framework, which they characterize as incorporating many categories of knowledge and practice associated with organizational security. This framework focuses on the interrelationship between different departments and functions in the organization. Among the issues key to strategic management and which must be addressed include what Smith and Brooks (2013) refer to as “inputs which are business enablers” (p.23). These include leadership and management, strategic knowledge as well as understanding of legislative requirements. Further, strategic planning also entails security knowledge, management of corporate assets, and the implementation of security activities.
CBP is the frontline border security agency, making it key to the US’s homeland security. Effective strategic plan is, therefore, paramount CBP not unlike other DHS organizations, but nonetheless to critical extent. In its strategic planning, CBP must look to respond to current and potential future vulnerabilities. In other words, the internal environment must be ready to cope with external factors. However, there are internal organizational problems that stand in the way of effective reconciliation to external factors, threats and vulnerabilities:
Terrorism and Crime
These include terrorism and crime, who pose significant threat. Criminals now form sophisticated international criminal cooperation and use legitimate businesses as cover. Terrorists have also formed global alliances and are likely to use established routes for smuggling and illegal immigration to gain access into the country. According to FATF (2013), investigations have established direct links between terrorism and drug and arms trafficking, and money laundering and counterfeiting. This significantly adds to the challenge that CBP faces.
Technological Advancements
Another factor – which can both be considered independently as a risk factor for terrorism and crime – is technological advances, which can be leveraged to not only conduct but also hide crimes. Independently, the DHS has continuously linked its various databases as well as communication systems to integrate its mission departments, i.e. CBP to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS) and others. This dependence on technology is only going to grow further, as DHS seeks technological solutions for monitoring, inspection, sharing of information as well as enforcement, and this is only going to leave CBP – and its partners agencies like CIS and ICE, etc. – only more exposed to the cyberthreats (Lorhmann, 2019; Painter, 2017). The recent issues regarding the involvement of Russia in the US’s presidential elections point to the big threat posed by state sponsored actors. There are threats to the US’s and global network infrastructure, posed by not just Russia, but also China and North Korea (Lorhmann, 2019). These threats are getting more intense as a result of equally intensifying political and trade wars, and they undermine the work of CBP. Other developments like 5G internet and the “internet of things” are more likely to present new threats and challenges, thereby further undermining CBP’s mandate.
The Elusive Search for Inter-Agency Integration and Cooperation
In the meantime, the need to form effective integration and cooperation with other components of the DHS have proven problematic. Although focused on different homeland security issues, the operational and support components of the DHS are meant to be interdependent and cooperative. However, there is lack of enough cooperation as a result of intra-/inter-organizational politics. In turn, there are problems of overlapping missions as well as operations, and redundancies and inefficiencies (Painter, 2017). This arises from the similarity of goals and objectives in some cases, such as between CBP and ICE. This inter-agency wrangling and failure to cooperate draws attention from the more important external factors to which CBP must focus its energies.
Workforce Challenges
Another challenge concerns the workforce, particularly as CBS is in the process of transitioning into a unified security agency that is the DHS. Evident and likely further consequences include the need to not only ensure adequate and skilled workforce, but also adopt new organizational culture (in the face of growing workforce complexities, such as diversity, mobility and the need for continual training, among others); respond to new priorities and trends (like aging staff, downsizing and retirements, among others); and also response to new demands for ethical practice (Painter, 2017). All these elements are associated with globalization. Also tied to this is the scope of the impact of security risks in the US, which have the potential to disrupt the world’s economy. Meanwhile, though, CBS faces – as part of the DHS – various challenges in identifying, recruiting, hiring, and fielding not just talented and skilled individuals, but also committed and competent workforce (Painter, 2017).
All these things add up to the pressures that CBP – and indeed DHS at large – must respond to in the form of sound strategic planning as it heads into the future. This is especially considering that CBS’s efforts to meet its homeland security and safety objectives – and DHS’s for that matter – must not stand in the way of international trade and travel, but in fact facilitate it. These are some of the issues that CBP must address in its strategic plan. In any case, recent attacks on the US power grids and transport systems shows that the country is still vulnerable to attack from both internal and external actors. The organization must address current problems but also potentially new issues.
Operational Definitions
Strategic planning: To think about how to realize a vision for an organization in the years to come
Strategic management: To gear day-to-day organizational management processes and operations towards the attainment of strategic plans
Internal environment: Within the organization
External environment: Outside or beyond the organization
Organizational learning: The capacity of organizational personnel accesses enough and accurate data.
Strategic planning drivers: Factors that influence strategic planning
Significance of the Study
This study aims to create a strategic plan for CBP. In this regard, the findings of this study should, therefore, reveal the strategic gaps in CBP’s current plan, both in terms of formulation and implementation. It will also reveal the specific ways in which these gaps adversely affect the organization’s ambitions to achieve its objectives, i.e. relating to security at the borders. This will focus on the present, but also potential trends in the future. Finally, the study will recommend a way forward for CBP in this respect. In other words, the study aims to contribute towards CBP’s search for effective framework for border security in the future.
Summary
This introduction covers several components of this study, providing a general overview of what this study will entail. The “Background” section focuses on the theoretical aspects of strategic management; the “Statement of the Problem” provides a general overview of the challenges that CBP faces at the moment with regard to strategic management – highlighting specific problems in relation to border security, among others – and suggests strategic planning as part of a necessary transformation. It also provides operational definitions of the some of the terminologies and language that will be used often in the paper, and finally presents the significance of the study to the CBP’s search for more effective border security interventions in response to current but also future security risks and management gaps.
References
Financial Action Task Force, FATF (2013). Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Related to Counterfeiting of Currency. FATF Report, June. Retrieved from https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/money-laundering-terrorist-financing-related-to-counterfeit-currency.pdf
Institute of Medicine, IOM. (2013). A ready and resilient workforce for the Department of Homeland Security: Protecting America’s front line. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Lohrmann, D. (2019). On Cybersecurity: What’s Next for Homeland Security? Government Technology, Apr. 28. Retrieved from https://www.govtech.com/blogs/lohrmann-on-cybersecurity/cyber-security-whats-next-for-the-us-department-of-homeland-security.html
Mitchell, J., & Pate, J. (2003). The Department of Homeland Security: Goals and Challenges. NTI. Retrieved from https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/homeland-security-goals-challenges/
Painter, W. L. (2017). Selected Homeland Security Issues in the 115 th Congress. Congressional Research Service (CRS) 7-5700, May 11
Perry, E. (2008). Strategic Planning Book. New Mexico: DP Publishers.
Smith, C. L., & Brooks, D. L. (2013). Security Science: The Theory and Practice of Security. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann
