Public service providers are committed to delivering effective, efficient and inclusive services. To do this well they cannot afford to ignore the benefits and opportunities of the information age economy and, above all, the real opportunities this presents for getting closer to the citizen as customer and for realising the long held ambition of joined-up government.
The Internet, the creation of dot.com businesses and the rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been largely responsible for the creation of this new economy. Up to now, however, most of this 'dot.com revolution' has been driven by and taken place within the private sector, which has led the way in organizing and delivering services which seek to build customer relationships and develop purchasing loyalty through tailoring their products and services - in terms of both content and delivery mechanism- as far as possible to identified needs and demands.
Traditional methods challenged
The single biggest impact of this revolution is in the way it has challenged traditional methods of service delivery and enabled customers to choose when, where and how they access services. The High Street is no longer the only option available. Call centres are now commonplace and on-line transactions make up an increasing proportion of overall spending, with services available via telephone, Internet, digital TV, mobile devices and other channels. This ability to 'personalize' services has enabled organizations to build unique one-to one-relationships with customers on a massive scale.
Providers of public services are particularly interested in the potential new technology offers to develop and deliver services more closely attuned to customer needs since common complaints centre around inaccessibility, inefficiency and lack of joined-up services. Partly as a result of the dot.com revolution, citizens are both more aware and more demanding as customers of public services. The 'sea change' in customer expectations presents a number of opportunities and problems:
- Services have to be more inclusive of all sections of the community; this can make design - and delivery - more complex and costly
- Multiple channels need to be provided for appropriate services to satisfy individual demands
- The legacy and sheer size and cost of change required in public services can be prohibitive.
If government and other major providers of public services are to address these challenges they need to distil the valuable lessons learnt by the dot.com failures and implement some of their successes. Our experience of implementing e-government and benefit-driven change programmes suggests that there are seven 'ingredients' that enable governments to harness the lessons of the dot.com world and transform itself.
Ingredients of successful e-initiatives
1. Use an 'incubator' style of introduction
Instead of trying to convert the entire organizational culture, the 'revolution' is much better introduced through creating a small 'incubator' unit, which will grow across the department, service or government bit by bit. An incubator model works well in environments which are highly change resistant or where rapid change is needed. This is because
- As it only affects a small part of the organization, traditional processes, culture and environment can be cast aside more easily
- The change process is less risky
- A small organization tends to be more tolerant and supportive of diversity, which encourages change and prevents reversion back to old ways of working.
The 'child' organization is inherently immature at the outset but should over time mature and evolve as new processes and traditions appropriate for its structure, environment and role develop. These new ways of working will gradually become embedded in the wider organization.
2. Push the boundaries created by legislation and tradition
Government departments and public service organizations are determinedly separate as a result of history, structure, convention, and, sometimes, legislation. In order to be successful in the new economy and achieve high levels of service agility, these boundaries need to be challenged. Action is required that pushes at and, where necessary, breaks these boundaries and barriers. Here, back-office technology is only a minor consideration compared to the other issues.
The single major barrier is legislation. Departments are often unable to share data as a result of Data Protection Acts, designed to protect personal data, Freedom of Information Acts, designed to make government information available to all and Human Rights Acts which give each citizen the right to privacy. Establishing customer acceptance of data transfer to deliver a personalized service can overcome at least some of the difficulties. A new approach, and indeed changes to the law, that give departments powers to share certain information whilst continuing to protect the interests of the citizen and respect their rights to privacy are however required.
3. Establish strong delivery partnerships
Only relatively recently have governments worked with commercial partners to deliver services. The private sector has expertise and knowledge that government may not have, and the use of partners may deliver greater benefits.
- Improved cost effectiveness: the private sector often benefits from shorter project lead times and specific economies of scale
- Better end product due to the partner's expertise
- Faster delivery times due to ability and experience.
There are essentially two types of partnership: those that provide a service to governments, and those that provide a service on behalf of government to the citizen. Partners will need to be engaged in different ways depending on what type of partnership is involved.
4. At the outset run initiatives like projects, rather than as steady-state operations
The importance of the management style used in this environment is important. In e-projects, priorities, environments and technologies are constantly changing, and these cannot be accommodated sufficiently well by steady state management.
Instead, a delivery-focused, project management approach is needed - one which treats each initiative as a venture in its own right, reacts to constantly changing priorities and where all effort is focused upon the final outcome. This approach is as applicable to the management of content in an on-line service as it is to the changes to the underlying IT infrastructure.
Once initiatives are nearing completion, the on-going management and resource arrangements can then be assessed and resolved. Typically these will be very different to those of normal service operation and management requirements.
5. Manage the changing remit
Governments experience frequent, often radical, changes in direction. Technology projects also have their own uncertainties and sometimes seem to have constantly changing goalposts. The challenge is to be sufficiently agile to cope with and thrive on this uncertainty.
The challenge is particularly acute in larger organisations that tend to be more resistant to change. Inertia caused by size, the combined resistance of a larger number of employees and the increased power of hierarchies and status within them all mitigate against successful change management. Larger organisations also tend to have complex operating processes that decrease the likelihood of maintaining change after implementation of the change plan. The trick is to establish a strong programme management framework which keeps track of progress towards the end vision.
6. Ensure all projects have a net positive value
The remits faced by governments are wide reaching; this results in a large, complex project portfolio. It is important for each individual initiative to work towards a common objective or set of objectives, and for each one to prove its value, through tangible and intangible benefits such as:
- The amount of money saved including fraud reduction
- The amount of directly generated revenue
- Time savings, both in terms of departmental resources and for the citizen
- Convenience created for the citizen through new delivery channels
- Increased efficiency achieved through on-line data checking, leading to a reduction in defects, rework and complaints
- Increased throughput arising from customer satisfaction and awareness of a more complete service.
The combined impact of any project must result in a net positive value to both the organisation and the customer.
7. Switch the customer on
Governments can make every effort to join the new economy, but this will be wasted unless the customer is both aware of and able to access the offering. It is not enough to simply tailor a product or service to the needs and wants of the target audience; it also needs to be marketed appropriately if the accessibility and inclusiveness objectives towards which the public sector strives are to be achieved. Public service providers can ensure the customer is 'switched on' by analysing customer requirements, segmenting them into appropriate groups and developing services and ways of accessing and marketing them that match these needs.
The challenge for the future
Technologies that are merely 'good' help us do things that we never could do before, but to be 'great' technologies need to help us do the things we already do, far, far better. The private sector has embraced this philosophy and is exploiting the information age to deliver faster, cheaper and more customer-specific services across a wider range of channels. There is no doubt that the inefficiencies inherent within parts of the public sector have detracted from its ability to embrace the new technologies to the same degree. Public service providers face very specific and unique challenges in realising the potential benefits of the dot.com revolution. If, though, they are committed to serving citizens to a standard to which they have - through their private sector experiences - become accustomed, they need to overcome these legacies and fundamentally review the way in which they organize and deliver their services.
