Reach, the Irish Government agency established to integrate public services in an electronic environment, today announced that BearingPoint Ireland, Limited, the wholly owned subsidiary of BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE), one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms, has begun the development phase of building reachservices (otherwise known as the Public Services Broker). This follows the selection of BearingPoint as preferred bidder in December 2003 and the completion of the initial preparatory phases of the project. reachservices is a key e- Government initiative for Ireland that will offer a radically improved level of service for both private citizens and businesses. The reachservices initiative is designed to help the Government of Ireland's departments and agencies streamline and modernise public service delivery. The new service will use leading communications technology to allow reliable and secure access and data sharing whether in person, via telephone or over the Internet. The initiative will provide a single point of access to public services, significantly improving citizen and business interaction with the Irish government.
The result will be a leading eGovernment service that enables Irish governmental departments and agencies to offer a wider range of easily accessible services while also reducing costs and improving upon efficiencies. reachservices will facilitate the bundling of services around a customer's preferences and life and business events, and will provide staff and users with the resources to securely navigate complex services information.
Oliver Ryan, director of Reach, said, "As the Reach initiative aims to dramatically improve the quality of services provided across the Irish Public Service, it was imperative that we chose the right team. After an exhaustive procurement process, we selected BearingPoint as our key development collaborator as they had all the attributes necessary for success. We are confident that with its knowledge of the industry, its skills and its understanding of our requirements, this leading company will enable us to achieve our objectives and allow Ireland to set new standards internationally in the execution of eGovernment strategies."
BearingPoint will bring to bear on the project vast and ever-increasing experience in the Public Sector across Europe. This includes ongoing work on the BundOnline eGovernment efforts in Germany, passport initiatives in Ireland, and Global Trade Management solution development in key commercial ports worldwide.
"With the reachservices initiative, Reach is leaping ahead to make Ireland a true innovator in the delivery of eGovernment and multi-channel services, efforts that will be reflected in future global eGovernment trends," said BearingPoint Ireland Ltd managing director Paul Toner. "BearingPoint is excited to be lending its experience to help transform the delivery of government services, addressing imperative performance, communication and ease-of-use issues through reachservices."
BearingPoint will lead design, build and implementation phases of the project, and will provide application management outsourcing services during the following five years. Other project team members will include Esat BT for Infrastructure Management Outsourcing, and BEA, Netegrity, Oracle and Sun Microsystems for technology.
Bill Murphy, CEO of Esat BT, said, "Having worked very closely with our partners to ensure we addressed all of the unique requirements for Reach, we are very excited to enter into the development phase of the reachservices project. Esat BT's expertise is unique in that it brings together security, infrastructure management, communications and data services, underpinning the solution provided by BearingPoint. We truly believe that once active, reachservices will offer governments, big and small, a blue print for success in their efforts to improve services by applying technology solutions."
About Reach
Reach is an agency established by the Government of Ireland to develop a strategy for the integration of public services and to develop and implement the framework for electronic government. In particular, Reach is mandated to improve the quality of service to personal and business customers of Government and to develop and deploy the Public Services Broker (reachservices), an integrated set of processes, systems and procedures designed to provide a standard means of access to public services. Reach was established by Government decision in 1999 and, in May of 2000, was mandated by Government to build or procure the Public Services Broker. Since then, Reach has been defining the architectures and principles underlying the operation of the Broker and is now poised to start its development.
About BearingPoint
BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE) is one of the world's largest business consulting, systems integration and managed services firms serving Global 2000 companies, medium-sized businesses, government agencies and other organizations. BearingPoint provides business and technology strategy, systems design, architecture, applications implementation, network infrastructure, systems integration and managed services. BearingPoint service offerings are designed to help our clients generate revenue, reduce costs and access the information necessary to operate their business on a timely basis. Based in McLean, Va., BearingPoint has been named by Fortune as one of America's Most Admired Companies in the computer and data services sector. For more information, visit the Company's website at www.BearingPoint.com.
Quelle: PR Newswire, 21.04.2004
