The study, e-government Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value, found Canadian e-government practices ranked first in all categories including service breadth, service depth and customer relationship management, earning 80 percent out of a possible score of 100 -- 13 percent better than its closest challengers Singapore and the U.S. Attributed to these gains, the Canadian government has continued to make large investments in IT thanks to e-government initiatives and good fiscal positions, according to a recent Forrester Research Inc. report.
According to Graeme Gordon, an Ottawa-based partner with Accenture's government practice in Canada, the nation has earned its top spot based on the fact that its e-government vision is predicated on customer centricity and a "whole of government" approach, which incorporates the different levels of government to deliver the best possible service to the user community.
"Canada's action plan is built on a solid foundation of fact based on the known information from the customer base," Gordon said. "It regularly surveys citizens and businesses for indication of attitudes and needs, and the processes (Canada) has appear to be most extensive compared to other countries in the survey in terms of gathering and understanding the needs of the citizens."
However, despite Canada's leading role in e-governance, the study found that advances in maturity on the whole are slowing down around the globe and even countries like Canada -- with the most advanced e-government practices -- have a long way to go to achieve dramatic results.
"When you look at how e-government has progressed, the ultimate goal is service transformation," Gordon explained.
"If you look at the study this year ... many countries have definitely hit a plateau. The ones that are in the highest level of maturity at this point ... their challenge now is going from looking at services as Internet-type activities to a complete service transformation."
Essentially, leading countries like Canada have to make decisions in terms of how they are going to accelerate this service transformation, which involves both horizontal and vertical integration of services that better serve citizen and business transactions with government agencies.
"I would suggest that Canada right now is on the doorstep ... but has not (yet) made the aggressive step toward service transformation," Gordon said. "The big challenge is integration across departments in the horizontal as well as vertical levels of government. We have come a long way but we are at a crossroads and the most challenging part of this service transformation is still ahead of us."
Gordon recommended that in order to reach that level of service integration, Canada will have to lay out a revised plan in which it rethinks and fine-tunes governance models and decision making practices.
"The time is right to make the transition," he said. "Canada has reached the level of maturity but to move to the next level, it does need a new approach."
Accenture studied the e-government practices of 22 countries including Canada, Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Singapore, Brazil, France and Germany. Researchers went online acting as citizens and based scores on the functionality, quality and maturity of services.
Quelle: IT World , 05.05.2004
