The Department of the Navy will conduct a complete review of the budgetary and business challenges resulting from the changing fiscal and security environment.
Impetus for this effort comes from the recently announced findings of the Strategic Choices in Management Review and DoD Secretary Hagel’s order to the Military Departments and Components to reduce headquarters staffs by 20 percent.
Navy secretary Ray Mabus ordered Tom Hicks, Navy Under Secretary and Chief Management Officer (CMO), to review areas where the Navy could improve its business practices. Mabus said this effort “will ensure that the Navy and Marine Corps team remains the most effective and efficient expeditionary fighting force the world has ever known.”
Mabus directed Hicks to produce a business transformation plan, assessment of the major challenges, and an action plan that includes performance milestones within 90 days.
Hicks and his staff will focus on people, platforms, power, and partnerships to accomplish a set of tasks that includes: developing and implementing clear goals and performance assessments for Navy transformation; resolving the most urgent and complex business challenges; and identifying opportunities to shape the Navy to meet future budgetary challenges.
Hicks said the Navy must act now because the current condition of constrained resources will not end soon. But, he added it does provides opportunities to think strategically about how the Navy conducts business. “What’s paramount is being able to accomplish the mission and being able to do so in a way that responds to the realities of the resources we have,” he emphasized.
He said his goal is to ensure that the process is a “collaborative effort across the Department of the Navy to identify opportunities for efficiencies, financial savings and staff savings.” He stressed that achieving success will take the combined efforts of the entire Navy.
