Towards e-government business process change

Citation

Hackney, R. (2003), "Towards e-government business process change", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 9 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/bpmj.2003.15709baa.002

Towards e-government business process change

Towards e-government business process change

The dramatic impact of the changing nature and content of business processes through e-business systems and technology is now being experienced within government agencies. The move towards business process change in this respect is identified through an increasing number of e-government initiatives. There is clearly a fundamental drive to implement Web-based transactions which augment traditional approaches to public service delivery (Von Hoffman, 1999; Sprecher, 2000). The opportunities are extensive to improve efficiency and effectiveness where European Union member states' combined procurement spending was around $778 billion and US federal, state and local procurement spending, in 2000, was estimated at around $550 billion (Symonds, 2000). Consequently, the transition of e-business to e-government processes has enormous potential to improve the extent and quality of service delivery agendas.

The nature and scope of e-government may be noted as follows (Heeks, 2001):

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  e-administration – improving government processes by reducing costs, managing performance, making strategic connections and creating empowerment;

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  e-citizens and e-services – connecting citizens to government by consulting with citizens, supporting accountability, listening to citizens, supporting democracy, and improving public services;

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  e-society – building interactions beyond the boundaries of government by working better with business, developing communities, building government partnerships, and building society.

The political and managerial systems within government add an extra level of complexity to the "e" process (Bannister, 2001). E-government, therefore, is affected by the diversity and bureaucratic nature of the organisational structures involved. Figure 1 shows a framework (Hackney and Jones, 2002), which could be adopted as a template for identifying the barriers, objectives and priorities for the e-government agenda. It demonstrates the idea of extending the government services network and changing the nature of its usage to improve core business processes.

The framework (Figure 1) identifies a number of critical issues for e-government consideration. The concepts noted are considered to be of significant importance and could assist with e–government strategy formulation. Central to these objectives is the notion of "added value" which has been reported frequently in the e-business literature (Amit and Zott, 2001).

Figure 1 E-government framework

Here, a value alliance emphasises the decentralisation of control, the creation of more flexible patterns of working, a greater empowerment of officers, the customer and the displacement of hierarchy by teamwork. This enables a greater sense of collective responsibility and the creation of more collaborative relationships among co-workers and customers as an imperative (Burn and Barnett, 2000). To achieve this there must be a fundamental shift in management thinking towards new business processes that include:

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  pervasive knowledge sharing, feedback and communication;

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  integration of environmental considerations;

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  effective partnerships with constituents;

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  commitment to using customer feedback;

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  front-line employees given the authority to deal with critical issues.

A key to the success of an e-government strategy will be a network of open communication, a combination of sharing and listening flowing both horizontally and vertically throughout the organisation. The primary aim is to ensure that all business processes revolve around its constituents as opposed to establishing bureaucracies into which customers need to break to obtain the services they require.

Government agencies clearly need to investigate reasons, through consultation, for consumer expectations from proposals towards e-democracy. Appropriate business processes are a critical factor for the successful adoption, diffusion and acceptance of e-government. There is a need to communicate very carefully the relevance, in this respect, of key policy initiatives. The field of e-government is particularly complex due to the political, organisational structure involved which transcends both internal and external agencies to a greater extent than traditional competitive markets. The business processes involved, therefore, must reflect social objectives as opposed to just financial criteria – this is the fundamental challenge for analysts and researchers.

Ray HackneyIndustry Editor

ReferencesAmit, R. and Zott, C. (2001), "Value creation in e-business", Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, pp. 493-530.Bannister, F. (2001), "Dismantling the silos: extracting new value from IT investments in public administration", Information Systems Journal, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 65-84.Burn, J.M. and Barnett, M.L. (2000), "Emerging virtual models for global e-commerce – world-wide retailing in the e-grocery business", Journal of Global Information Technology Management, Vol. 3 No. 1, Special Millennium Issue on Global E-commerce, pp. 18-32.Hackney, R. and Jones, S. (2002), "Towards e-government in the Welsh (UK) Assembly: an information systems evaluation", paper presented at the ISOneWorld Conference and Convention, Las Vegas, NV, April.Heeks, R (2001), "Building e-governance for development: a framework for national donor action", E-government Working Paper, No. 12, ISDPM, University of Manchester, Manchester.Sprecher, M.H. (2000), "Racing to e-government: using the Internet for citizen service delivery", Government Finance Review, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 21-2.Symonds, M. (2000), "Government and the Internet: the next revolution", The Economist, 24 June.Von Hoffman, C. (1999), "The making of e-government", COI Enterprise Magazine, 15 November.