"IT should be viewed as an enabler of public sector productivity, it makes it easier to automate processes and widen access to services," says V Mathivanan, Chief Executive Officer of CrimsonLogic. "However this has to be closely coupled with the willpower to improve the public administration, as well as the determination to streamline the processes, which is the very best hurdle to be overcome."
Read more: The importance of central direction for Asian e-government
As more Asian governments realize the benefits of e-government, technology vendors recently admitted that they’re still having a hard time selling to public servants.
At the Malaysian government's 8th annual Multimedia Super Corridor International Advisory Panel summit last week attention was focused on the region's current boom in outsourcing. But as the audience sat through an endless series of powerpoint slides, it became clear that one vertical was being uncharacteristically slow to reexamine its approach to sourcing - government.
Two is company, but 21 is definitely a crowd. Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is the region's largest multilateral grouping and (one hopes) an excellent forum for trade-related issues. But as the largely inconsequential outcome of last year's 2nd Apec High-Level Symposium on e-Government shows, e-government and regional declarations of intent make for uneasy bedfellows.
In the past few years, governments in Asia-Pacific have invested millions in online initiatives in the hope of giving citizens easier access to services ranging from the filing of taxes to the application of government permits.