Familiarity breeds…better collaboration! We talked to Alain Grijseels, the CIO of the Belgian national health insurance service RIZIV/INAMI, about differences in the work environment between public and private sector projects, the importance of strategy, and the need to balance tool continuity with innovation.

To celebrate the latest release of our Future-Ready Workspace, Getronics is hosting a series of special seminars on key themes for senior IT management and purchasing professionals.
Alain Grijseels, CIO at RIZIV/INAMI, opened the programme on May 20th, with a presentation on ‘Technology: sitting back or sitting up?’
We talked to Alain about the differences between the public and private sectors, about the importance of strategy and the need to balance continuity and innovation

Q: Alain, you’ve worked in both the public and private sector – what do you see as being the biggest differences between them?

Probably the most important difference is the degree of regulation in the public sector, and the impact this has on major projects. Strict procedures regarding public tender, for example, mean you need to factor this carefully into the planning cycle - things can take longer in the public sector.

There is also a greater emphasis on aligning individual initiatives with the overall direction of the service – in the private sector you find a far higher degree of entrepreneurial flexibility at business unit level.

The other major difference, I think, regards people and more specifically, the way we use incentive and reward. In the private sector, promotions and bonuses are business tools which you can use fairly spontaneously to help guide and shape the workforce. The public sector is a lot less dynamic in this respect. You do, however, get a degree of long-term commitment in the public sector which can be a fantastic asset for any manager.

It is also important to mention the administration contract between INAMI and the Federal Government. This is agreed every three years and permits correct long-term strategic and aligned planning.

Q: In the three years you’ve spent at RIZIV/INAMI, what’s been the biggest change?


Without a doubt, the biggest change has been in the increased importance of governance. It’s made formal project management, for example, a far more critical skill for us – we have become far more rigorous in the way we define the scope, the budget and the planning of initiatives.

The other big change, and this is very closely linked to governance, is the way in which we need to break down operational silos. It’s only by breaking these barriers down, that our organisation can achieve the agility which is so essential in providing a good public service.

Let’s take an example. Record management is absolutely central to the operation of RIZIV/INAMI. In terms of organisation, we need to deal with four distinct record types:

• Medical control
• Administrative control
• Disability dossiers, and
• Legislative dossiers