A recent IDC study has found that the focus of many Asia/Pacific governments is on squeezing more value out of their IT investments. In the region, Asian governments with aspirations to position themselves as global e-government leaders are beginning to view the value derived from IT investments as a measure of their capabilities. "Reflecting on the last five years, Asian government's approach to building their IT infrastructure has been 'if it's possible to build, then we need to build it'", said Nathan Midler, research manager, public sector research, IDC Asia/Pacific.
"Today, leading governments realize that aligning government needs with IT solutions, and making strategic investments can cost less, yet deliver more in terms of cost savings, recognition, and user satisfaction," added Midler.
Reminiscent of the dotcom boom years, governments have designed bold and grand plans for e-governance, but in many cases their efforts have failed to deliver the intended outcome. Plans have envisioned improving user satisfaction and modernizing the government, but despite their high aspirations, many e-services remain under utilized. Many governments continue to rely on offline work methods, or worse, with new IT solutions in place, continue to carry out the same inefficient work processes that existed offline previously.
And the vendors are all the more excited at the proposition of bagging meaty government contracts. Speaking to CXOtoday, Javed Tapia, director, Red Hat Linux India, said, " In India, governments are adopting Linux for three main reasons. Firstly, the low cost high value proposition that Linux represents. Secondly, reliability; like their commercial counterparts, government users expect their systems to be up and running 100% with no failure. And third, Linux and open source solutions lower total cost of operations and require less maintenance. Open Source software is also standards-based, which enables Linux to be widely deployed in various government agencies.”
The key to increasing the value of IT is to align IT solutions with government needs. Today, leading governments in Asia are gaining more value from their IT investments through focusing on cross-agency solutions, reorganizing their internal management of IT and e-services, increasing IT training, placing greater emphasis on tracking and evaluating performance indicators, and promoting collaboration.
In order to bridge gaps and overcome the barriers to communication, government policies are being implemented to establish a common set of technology standards to which departments must adhere. Only when inter-department communication and data transfer across the entire network is achieved will the government be able to realize the benefits of IT investments and advance to the next stage of e-government, the study evaluated.
K P Unnikrishnan, marketing director, Sun Microsystems India, said, “Defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies have a greater need for fast, secure network collaboration and information sharing than ever before. We are providing solutions for the specific needs of government agencies and departments for deploying confidential or classified networks and intra-organization collaboration and data management.”
"Governments today are evaluating if funds can be better channeled elsewhere rather than investing in resources that simply duplicate work processes. For example, governments are now seeing the potential benefits of combining non-core government functions, such as human resources, via a centrally managed IT solution", added Mr. Midler.
At the same time, greater value in how IT is used to deliver government services is possible, particularly with citizen-focused e-services. Despite large investments, e-services have not managed to significantly reduce the use of offline channels of government interaction. In many cases, government employees have been under trained to use their own e-services and, not surprisingly, have difficulty inspiring citizens to use these e-services. As governments continue to rely on offline channels to interact with citizens, large investments in e-services are under utilized, the study concluded.
Quelle: CXOtoday, 02.07.2004
