For example, Canadians recently learned that their federal government posted a CAD $8.9 billion surplus, the fifth in a row during the past five years. While much of the savings has come from broad cost cutting, the Canadian government has also invested heavily in e-government, thereby letting Canadians serve themselves online, while at the same time reducing the cost of providing many government services.
The people of New York City have also benefited from smarter, more efficient government, thanks to the success of the New York Police Department’s COMPSTAT system that tracks crime statistics throughout the city and provides law enforcement with daily updates on criminal activity.
Started under administration of former mayor Rudy Giuliani, the program has been so successful that it has since been replicated across several government agencies, from Consumer Affairs to the Department of Health. New Yorkers can even monitor the performance of these agencies by checking the latest statistics themselves on the NY city’s website.
Indeed, citizens across the United States and around the world are benefiting from e-government at the national, state and local levels. From electronic tax filing to online payment for parking tickets, governments everywhere have seen how technology not only helps them reduce costs, but also serve the public better.
Building on the lessons learned from their internet initiatives, and after seeing how e-business has taken root in the private sector, many government agencies are now well underway with new technology projects aimed at replacing legacy systems and improving their back-end operations as well.
Thanks to this continued investment, IDC estimates that IT spending by the US government will increase from $28.9 billion in 2001 to $42.2 billion by 2006.
A comparative estimate by INPUT forecasts that US federal government spending will grow from $37.1 billion in 2002 to $63.3 billion by 2007, with homeland security and e-government initiatives expected to lead the way.
Citing the need to improve federal agencies’ internal financial management and human resources operations, INPUT has also found that US federal government spending on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems will grow from $3.5 billion in 2002 to $6.0 billion by 2007.
While those who dream of seeing legions of bureaucrats being replaced by quietly efficient computer systems may be disappointed, the government’s recent embrace of ERP is a significant step in the right direction.
But as most people in the private sector are well aware, technology alone does not solve a large organization’s problems. However, the process of implementing new technology does open up the door to significant institutional change, which may go a long way toward making several federal agencies much more efficient.
Imagine seeing government productivity gains matching those achieved by the private sector in the late 1990s, when several large corporations started to complete their ERP implementations. That would warm the hearts of the public, indeed.
Quelle: eMarketer
