IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The phrase "electronic government," or "e-government," was intriguing, even absorbing, in its infancy. The concept elicited a leading-edge idea of what government service could become. And, in fact, the e-government market began a period of major growth in fiscal year (FY) 2000 in conjunction with the national growth of the Internet and the acceptance of online business and transaction processing. This initial phase of e-government was characterized by the development of Web sites that largely featured government-to-citizen services. Every state and most local jurisdictions have operational Web sites. But now what? It is becoming evident that the e-government market has reached some maturity in the product life cycle, with peak national spending across state and local governments of approximately $700 million in FY 2002. Unfortunately, the recent fiscal crisis, coupled with some disillusionment in the effectiveness of e-government services across those government jurisdictions, forced decreased spending of approximately 60 percent from FY 2002 to FY 2003, with further erosion in spending of an additional 50 percent into FY 2004. Further, state and local governments have largely exhausted cost efficient and revenue-generating Web-site solutions for information dissemination and transaction processing. The initial phase of state and local e-government has essentially topped out. More pointedly, most of the low-hanging e-government fruit has been picked.

The anticipation and optimism of e-government was great in its infancy of FY 2000, riding the explosion of the Internet and all that life online promised. And while online access by citizens and businesses has increased over the years, much of the promise for improved efficiency in government service remains somewhat unfulfilled. This fact leads us to the more important and critical next phase of e-government.

Assuming governments remain committed to the promise of improved efficiencies and effectiveness that electronic government can bring, the e-government market will begin a new phase, Phase 2, which will be marked by careful research and planning. And the true commitment that governments make approaching this next phase will be critical to its success. While the gains in Phase 2 can be great, the pain in successfully reaching Phase 2 may prove equal"or greater"than those gains. The next phase of e-government will necessitate the wide-scale integration and consolidation of government-to-government back-end systems. Unfortunately, despite common misconceptions, government that encompasses federal, state and local jurisdictions is not one, big happy family operating in harmony, and, unfortunately, the same holds true internally across respective government departments and agencies.

This leads to good news and bad news for governments and the contractors that chase their business. The bad news: Spending on e-government will be far from a watershed over the next few years. In fact, Phase 2 of e-government will likely see only gradual and very moderate contract growth in consulting and systemic review in FY 2005 and 2006. The good news: As system planning is complete, process and system redesigns are likely to dovetail in the time frame of more comprehensive process outsourcing, driving pronounced total e-government market growth that will move e-government from a Web-site product to a more comprehensive service sector.

The success of Phase 2 of e-government will be led by exploratory research initiatives that outline agency-by-agency process reviews and develop comprehensive plans for integration and system consolidation. As governments complete plans and begin widespread integration and process improvement across agencies, services will increasingly be tied to new, more fully interactive portals that will be automated to citizens. In this transformation of e-government, the concept and structure of contracts will increasingly resemble IT service expenditures, as opposed to e-government as a vertical market.

The ultimate realization of all that e-government can provide will come, but be patient"the journey will take time and will likely be bumpy.

Autor: James Krouse

Quelle: Var Business, 06.08.2004