Tomorrow’s e-government today: Government and vendors?

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Sean Burns

Sean Burns is a Senior Manager with a background in business consulting and program management. Built on four years of senior experience within the Wellington market, the majority of his experience comes from New York City with his education in project management beginning at New York University. Since then, with two masters degrees, he has taken on a variety of roles both in public and private enterprises.

Tomorrow’s e-government today: Government and vendors?

A New Zealand e-government future is inevitable. The road however is long and at times still unclear. To ensure the road travelled remains achievable, New Zealand’s e-government strategy continues to be realistic, resolute and relevant. Along this journey, the mitigation of e government challenges and the interplay between government agencies and vendors contracted to assist in achieving the e-government vision has at times been misunderstood for a number of reasons.

While navigating these misunderstandings, rapid trends and advancements in technology make it easy to become caught up in hype and lose sight of what e-government can mean for New Zealand. To combat this, the State Services Commission has clearly identified the initiatives. However, the technological adoption, change of mindset, and organizational networking required by certain government bodies has not been as quick in response.

The many challenges facing e-government realisation remain real and can add to the misunderstanding of how the future of e-government will be achieved. For many government departments, these challenges include but are not limited to:

• Resistance to organizational change
• Privacy and security issues
• Compatibility of systems and standards
• Responsibly managing exponential amounts of information
• Developing the agility and edge required to keep up with technological advancements
• Lack of customer relationship programmes
• Financial governance over public spending
• Efficient public service delivery
• And lack of clarity around forward planning strategies

While there are no obvious roadmaps to navigate all of the challenges facing e-government, the greatest challenge facing the e-government vision noted by vendors and government alike remains the formation of networked government and integrated services. Networked government implies the existence of e-government systems that support relations between different structures of government. In many senses, this becomes the base upon which future capabilities of e-government can be built. Networked government becomes the platform upon which many of those challenges can be overcome.

Also known as Government-to-Government, networked government is the formation and reinforcement of a solid backbone such as the State Services Commission's Government Shared Network (GSN) for sharing information in a common standard among different government bodies. Networked government can help to avoid unnecessary parallel data collection and costly duplication that could otherwise waste taxpayer dollars and slow the progress of achieving the e-government vision.

Simultaneously, the relationship network between government organisations and the vendors who aim to provide the technological capabilities required for e-government has not always been clear. Numerous tarnished hallmarks of this relationship include failed projects in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars indirect loss to taxpayers. While these projects are classified as failures, they are not an excuse for becoming further risk averse or second guessing the e-government inevitability. It is up to New Zealand to learn from such mistakes to ensure they do not happen again through reinforcing the networked government and vendor relationships.

In light of these expensive e-government teething disasters, two years ago I was asked to present on the topic of government/vendor relationships. It was quite novel at the time to discuss the concept with government directors that vendors are not the competition in this endeavour. Unlike government, vendors exist only if there is revenue coming in, and in this theme, vendors only compete with other vendors with whom they are not partnered, not directly with their clients such as the government. Let's look at this relationship in terms of where strengths lie.

Government departments primarily exist for the citizens it serves. It is, or should be, the trusted partner of the taxpayer who funds its activities for the services it provides in return. The inherent responsibility, in-depth analysis required for planning e-government, and governance of e-government services is best housed in a government department in exchange for the long-term trust afforded to it by the general public and other government organisations.

Vendors exist in a completely different environment. Speed, efficiency, market intelligence, and a proven track record of delivering value added results on time and budget is what the superior vendor excels at. This can only happen when a common scope, business understanding, and relationship is in place with government clients. Bringing these strengths and knowledge to government agencies to aid in the development of e-government capability is where particular vendors raise their game. It is when the vendor no longer looks to just deliver point solutions but understands the future business needs of a government department in the context of e-government that creates added value.

Vendors who truly understand their client's business are the vendors who most often have experience stretching both into other government organisations and around the world where vast amounts of knowledge and experience can be leveraged in local government initiatives. These vendors are then backed by the financial stability and staying power multinationals primarily offer.

Does this mean multinational vendors do not have local interests such as New Zealand e government at the forefront of its agenda? Not in the least, it is only through strong local relationships, the sharing of information, networking relationships and technology enablement that these vendors will continue to succeed. Just as there is little point in a vendor delivering unwanted or unscoped solutions to government customers, there is equally little point in government agencies not clearly outlining what they need to meet e-government requirements.

What about government agencies who do not seem to need a vendor? Often government departments choose to run some or all of their IT shop inhouse. While the way in which those inhouse IT shops are run is not within the scope of this article, how those inhouse shops leverage networked relationships with knowledgeable vendors and other government agencies is.

In some cases of building e-government capability, the vendor/government relationship can again become further misunderstood when government agencies becoming unwilling to confront the fact they perhaps are either too tied up in internal politics or do not have the inhouse ability to gather information critical to making long term e-government strategic decisions. In this situation they occasionally avoid looking to those networked relationships with vendors or other government agencies and instead decide to start a dangerous guessing game with their future capabilities.

If e-government services aim to enhance transparency, trust, accountability, communication of critical information, and develop appropriate and useful online services, how are government agencies using vendors to keep their own risk and costs down while offering a return on the e-government services promised to its citizens? This is a question governments should be asking their vendors. Government agencies looking at the e-government strategy need to ask the hard question of whether or not their current vendor is simply providing a capability or enabling business transformation through added value trusted relationships and from this directly communicate their expectations to the vendor involved.

A handful of New Zealand government agencies have had the foresight to understand creating a government-to-government communication network both on the softer side with relationships and the harder side such as using the GSN. It is the first big step towards a solid e-government future. They have simultaneously realised it can aid in reducing huge amounts of department risk. It is the first step outside of the silo mentality and is required to propel New Zealand beyond e-government toward the 2020 goal.

To further this, a recent effort has been made to engage the heads of agencies in conversation to start discussions leading to stronger networked relationships. These conversations act as a foundation to action, they are the inter-governmental and vendor relationships required to enable the future of New Zealand e-government. What has started is the journey of saving enormous amounts of tax payer dollars through the shared use of what could otherwise become hugely expensive duplicate databases and multiple information systems performing the same tasks in isolation.

Slowly, duplicate initiatives are becoming joint initiatives and counteractive policies are becoming proactive e-government policy. Through this discourse and partnership of agencies and vendors alike, the future of e-government is becoming more of a possibility today. This synergy and discourse is where the successful relationship between government-to-government and vendors exists in realising an e-government reality.

As countries such as Ireland, Australia, the UK, the Lithuania and others roll-out e-government on a massive scale, the emergence of new e-government technology, the GSN, e-government service offerings, and vast arrays of m-government capabilities and integration possibilities presents just a few of the e-government opportunities to be realised in New Zealand.

Fortunately, not only do seemingly endless possibilities for the application of e-government exist, so do the low risk and proven forward thinking strategies to make the future of New Zealand e-government a reality and example unto other countries. All of this is possible provided the journey begins with the relationships built at the appropriate levels within both the government and vendor communities today.