Business

Student Details: Subject Name: Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 (CCS217) Assignment: No 1 – Research Report e-Business and the Commonwealth Government Introduction E-business is more than just an Internet presence or e-commerce transactions. It is a new business design “that emphasises a finely tuned integration of customer needs, technology and processes”(Kalakota & Robinson, 2001, p2). Companies that use this new design focus on integrating operations to support changing customer requirements. They understand that the e-customers’ needs, tastes and expectations are transforming the shape of the whole enterprise (Kalakota & Robinson, 2001). Therefore one of the key concepts in creating an e-business is being a customercentred organisation. This concept is not limited to the for-profit sector. Today, governments at all levels are also adopting proven best practices and technologies to improve customer service and business performance. The impact of this change is enormous – both for citizens in their view of the responsiveness of government and for government itself as it embraces a new view of the citizen as a customer (Deloitte Research, 2001). In this customer-centric e-government context, use of the Internet plays a key role, but it represents more than just a new channel for delivering government services. It is a catalyst that challenges age-old assumptions about how governments should operate, especially how they create value for their constituents by improving convenience, ease of use, offering better information faster and creating a higher level of service (Deloitte Research, 2001). Consequently, an e-government approach to doing business impacts every aspect of the organisation including workflows, technology and staffing (Deloitte Research, 2000). It has been described as “the use of technology to enhance the access to and delivery of government services to benefit citizens, business partners and employees” (Deloitte Research 2000, p1). Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 2 of 13 E-government in Australia Australian government is divided into three levels: Commonwealth or Federal; State and Territory; and Local or Council. Each level has its own sphere of responsibility with some overlap between the levels. Consequently, at each level the business of government is different, necessitating different interactions with constituents or customers. This has meant that the development of e-government has been different at for each of these three levels also. Furthermore, the Commonwealth government, to a much greater degree than State or Local governments, holds very sensitive information about individuals and organisations and is constrained by legislative barriers from combining separate data items to create new information, hence the development of e-government at the federal level has needed to take a different route (Bushell, 2000). This paper will only cover the e-government developments in the Commonwealth Government. In December 1997, the Prime Minister made a commitment for all appropriate government services to be deliverable on the Internet by the end of 2001 (Howard, 1997). This commitment was translated into the Government Online Strategy, which has three main aims: • • • to find more efficient and effective ways of delivering government services; to provide services that are more customer focused and that reduce customers’ transaction costs; and to facilitate faster uptake of electronic commerce in Australia by introducing government use of electronic service delivery (Power, 2001). According to a report by NOIE (2001) into government online service delivery, as at March 2001, 17% of the agencies surveyed had all appropriate services online with 93% anticipating to have all appropriate services online by the end of 2001. The majority (72%) of the services were categorised as information and communication services, with ‘business/industry’ and ‘all Australians’ most often cited as beneficiaries of the online services. Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 3 of 13 However, the report anticipates that future online services will be more sophisticated with 52% predicted to be data interchange services. As at March 2001, 27% were identified as data interchange services, with many classified as ‘transactional’. The sophistication of services is increasing slowly, with a gradual shift from services that provide static information only, to services that provide access to downloadable information (NOIE, 2001a). The NOIE report focuses solely on agencies’ progress towards meeting the Government Online Strategy’s goals and does not provide any analysis of whether the Strategy is meting the needs of customers better than traditional channels of service delivery or adding value. However, in an international study, Deloitte Research suggest that governments classified as customer-centric, that is “those that make concerted efforts to leverage taxes to increase customer satisfaction”, achieve over 50% more success in the critical performance areas of “providing easier customer access, increasing service volume, getting better information on operations, reducing employee complaints, reducing employee time spent on non-customer activities and improving their own image” (Deloitte Research, 2000, p1). Portal Concept By the end of 2000, the growing use of the Internet by government departments to present their information and services to the public has led to a large number of websites and available resources. Although on the whole there were plenty of links between the websites, to actually locate relevant information or services people have generally needed to understand how government is structured (NOIE, 2000e). Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 4 of 13 To improve ease of access, the Commonwealth Government introduced an online portals framework for its departments and agencies. The framework aims to provide a customer-focused, coordinated approach to the Commonwealth’s online presence to simplify the process of finding services and information that a customer is looking for. The framework builds upon and organises the Commonwealth Government’s existing web presence. It adds a related set of websites (portals) that present information and services grouped around customer types and topics, rather than around agencies’ areas of responsibility (NOIE, 2000a). The portals complement, not replace, the existing Commonwealth websites and place them in a customer-oriented framework. To facilitate implementation, a minimalist model was designed to satisfy the important user requirements of finding or discovering what they need from government on the Internet. Therefore, each portal will initially provide • • • A single online point of access to available online information and services for the relevant customer or subject group Customer focused discovery processes and mechanisms Customer feedback mechanisms (NOIE, 2000e) The portals framework also builds on the Government Electronic Resources Network (GOVERNET) strategy to enable users to locate and access government information resources quickly and easily. GOVERNET works by getting government agencies to describe their information and services in a structured way (metadata) and making these descriptions available to advanced search engines. It relies on the Australian Government Locator Service metadata standard developed and maintained by the National Archives of Australia. GOVERNET will be able to work across all tiers of government (Commonwealth, State/Territory and Local) and all agencies (NOIE, 2000d). Currently there are a number of portals for Commonwealth government information and services with a variety of approaches. Three of these are quite similar although each provides a slightly different perspective on the information provided. It will be interesting to see in the future whether the Commonwealth decides to consolidate some or all of these portals. They are Fed.gov.au, Australia.gov.au and www.gov.au. Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 5 of 13 Fed.gov.au, is also described as the Commonwealth Government Entry Point and offers comprehensive and integrated access to Federal Government information. The site is a portal to material placed on the Internet by all Commonwealth Departments and agencies, but is not a publishing tool itself. Most material indexed by this site is created and stored externally to the site. It is intended to extend resource discovery via this site to include State, Territory or local government resources within the gov.au suffix (www.fed.gov.au). The site works in with the Commonwealth's aim to provide equitable access to information and provides variety of access approaches to allow the customer to choose the method of finding information that best suits them. It has been developed with useability and accessibility principles as the main drivers for design and it claims that customer input and feedback “have real impact on development” (www.fed.gov.au). The information is organised first by customer type (individuals, students, businesses and non-residents) and then by topic, for example; employment, taxation, rural development or immigration. This structure goes some way to enable customers to access the required information without first having a knowledge of the structure of government and the responsibilities of each department, at least at the Commonwealth level. Australia.gov.au is similar in intent to fed.gov.au and at first glance it is difficult to work out why the two portals co-exist. Like fed.gov.au, this portal is designed to “help you find the government services you need without needing to know which government agency to go to. It represents the entry point in providing you with easy access to government information and services” (www.australia.gov.au/info/about.asp). Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 6 of 13 While the structure of the two sites is similar, this is also where the main difference lies. Australia.gov.au is the entry point for a series of Commonwealth government customer focused portals that centre on particular topics. Together with the entry point, these portals form the Commonwealth’s customer focused portals framework described earlier. Currently the site connects the customer to nine sites; agriculture, business, culture and recreation, education, employment, families, regional, science and industry, and youth. There are also other interim sites flagged for development over the next year on; community groups, environment, health, immigration, indigenous, law and justice, seniors and women (NOIE, 2000e). Currently the Australia.gov.au only connects the customer to information about Federal Government resources, however (as with fed.gov.au) it is intended in the future to add links to State and Local Government sites. As a result, the site plans to provide “a single point of access to all levels of government in Australia” (www.australia.gov.au/info/about.asp). A portal that currently looks wider than the Commonwealth government is www.gov.au. It provides access to government information and services across the Federal and State/Territory levels, however does not include Local Government. Like Australia.gov.au, this portal also will be developed over time to provide an Australian whole-of-government single point of access. Currently in its initial release, the site provides links to nine entry points for Commonwealth, State and Territory governments. However through implementation of the GOVERNET architecture, the site will be further developed to allow full search and retrieval capabilities across all levels of government and all government sites (www.gov.au). Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 7 of 13 Another portal, FedInfo (www.fedinfo.gov.au) is a web site tailor-made for Commonwealth public servants —streamlining access to existing and relevant information from many official sources. Its goal is to save time by providing a direct route to information needed for daily tasks, longer-term planning, resource and information management issues and professional development. The information is organised into five key topic areas; career, financial matters, information management, policy and Parliament and human resources. The information ranges from who’s who in parliament and the latest financial regulations, to links to airlines (for arranging business travel) and key newspapers and magazines including the Public Service Gazette for job vacancies. While government Internet presence is growing, at this stage, it is difficult to ascertain how deeply the e-government changes have penetrated within Commonwealth agencies to effect enterprise transformation which is a critical factor of developing an e-government (Deloitte Research, 2000a). As Deloitte Research point out in their Through the Portal report (2000a), offering services through a portal is an ongoing process and one that requires governments to use their portals as engines for enterprise transformation – re-organising and redeploying resources to efficiently meet customer needs. At the centre of this process are changes in business processes, human resources and technology. Since portals aggregate various services and customer information from different departments, the silo organisational structure can be changed to collaborative clusters supported by a centralised shared process. Also new organisations charged with fostering and overseeing e-government functions can be created, such as the formation of the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) (Deloitte Research, 2000a). Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 8 of 13 Beyond Internet Presence The Commonwealth Government's vision is “to bring about the integration of Government services online, promote the use of the information economy, and to establish the Commonwealth as a leading-edge user of new information technologies and an innovator of communication management” (NOIE, 2000b, p1). In this context, the Commonwealth is working to simplify communications and administration in Commonwealth agency work practices, by among other things, enabling secure online communications with and between agencies and striving to implement best practice systems for whole of government computing activities and telecommunications usage (NOIE, 2000f). FedLink, one of the initiatives under that umbrella, has been described as the foundation stone for the Commonwealth’s e-business activities. It was one of the initiatives announced by the Prime Minister in his Investing for Growth statement. The Prime Minister referred to a Government wide intranet for secure online communication and full multimedia applications to facilitate more timely exchange of information between government agencies, the Parliament and Ministerial Offices (NOIE, 2000b). FedLink is an architectural framework for enabling cost-effective and secure communications between Government agencies across the Internet. It is a Virtual Private network (VPN) which uses IPSec standard protocols, existing agency Internet gateways and the connectivity provided by the Internet to create a secure Government Intranet, thereby promoting a new era of secure information management and exchange for all Government agencies. FedLink was successfully piloted during 1999, and has now moved to full implementation, making access available to all Commonwealth agencies (NOIE, 2000c). Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 9 of 13 Some Challenges While Australia ranks in the top ten countries in the world in the uptake of online services (Power, 2001), there remain some significant barriers to widespread egovernment provision. A critical factor is that government services must be available to all citizens, irrespective of access to technology, hence the Internet can only be one of the channels that government uses to provide services. Although 65% of Australians over the age of 16 and 40% of households have access to the Internet (NOIE, 2001a), that still leaves significant numbers who do not. As Hazell and Doig (2001, p38) point out: “The public sector must ensure that the widest range of online services are accessible and functional to all levels of the public and business community. This includes providing those services on an equitable and affordable basis to anyone who needs them – and not ignoring those who do not or cannot, access or use computers”. Therefore consideration needs to be given not only to questions of access, but also to whether there are compelling enough applications available online (Power, 2001). As the Commonwealth sector moves beyond information provision to exchange of data, the issue of security also becomes increasingly important. For e-government to be effective and useful, the customers need to have a high level of trust in the security and privacy of their electronic transactions with government (Phillips, 2001). To address this issue, Commonwealth agencies must comply with privacy and security guidelines. The security issues are partly addressed by the FedLink virtual network described earlier. Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 10 of 13 The Commonwealth has also developed a Gatekeeper Strategy that provides a national framework for the authentication of users of electronic online services and “a structure through which government can ensure integrity, security and authenticity in the transmission of information and transaction of business” (NOIE, 2001). Under the Strategy accredited companies provide public key technology (PKT) services to government. Public Key Certificates, generated using PKT, bind the identity of users to their public key material in a trusted and legally based manner (NOIE, 2001). Other countries, particularly in Europe, are looking to the Gatekeeper approach for a commercial standard in security (Jay, 2000). The Australian Taxation Office implemented PKT in their Electronic Commerce Interface (ECI) that enables Australian Businesses to lodge their Business Activity Statements (BAS) directly via the Internet (NOIE, 2000e). Conclusion While it can be seen that the Commonwealth Government has made substantial headway into the realm of e-government with the implementation of the Government Online Strategy, it potentially still has significant changes ahead, particularly in the realm of enterprise transformation. The portals concept begins the road to breaking down the inter-departmental silos, as does the creation of agencies such as NOIE. It is also one of the catalysts that move government towards a customer-centric business model. However ultimately the extent to which the Commonwealth adopts the egovernment business model will depend on factors such as the value for money created for the taxpaying customer. Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 11 of 13 Reference List Australia.gov.au [online], Available: www.australia.gov.au [accessed 20 Jan 2002] Bushell, S. 2000, Politically Direct, CIO, October 2000, pp50-58. Deloitte Research 2000, At the Dawn of e-Government: The Citizen as Customer, Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte & Touche, New York Deloitte Research 2000a, Through the Portal: Enterprise Transformation for eGovernment, Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte & Touche, Global Deloitte Research 2001, e-Government’s Next Generation: Transforming the Government Enterprise Through Customer Service, Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte & Touche, New York Fed.gov.au [online], Available: www.fed.gov.au [accessed 20 Jan 2002] FedInfo 2002 [online], Available: www.fedinfo.gov.au [accessed 20 Jan 2002] FedLink 2002 [online], Available: www.fedlink.gov.au [accessed 18 Jan 2002] Hazell,A. & Doig, L. 2001, E-government Agenda, Australian CPA, October 2001, pp 38-39 Howard, J. 1997, Investing for Growth, [online] Address, National Press Club Canberra, available: www.pm.gov.au [accessed 13 Jan 2002] Jay, C. 2000, Drive for e-business renewed, Australian Financial Review, 20 October 2000. Kalakota & Robinson 2001, ‘Moving from e-Commerce to e-Business’, E-Business 1 Study Guide, Australian Computer Society National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2000a, Customer Focused Portals Framework [online], available: www.govonline.gov.au/projects/services&innovation/portals.htm, [accessed 23 Jan 2002] National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2000b, FedLink Background Information [online], available: www.fedlink.gov.au/background.htm, [accessed 24 Jan 2002] National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2000c, FedLink What is FedLink [online], available: www.fedlink.gov.au/what_is_fedlink.htm, [accessed 24 Jan 2002] National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2000d, GOVERNET [online], available: www.govonline.gov.au/projects/services&innovation/governet.htm, [accessed 23 Jan 2002] National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2000e, Government Online Progress Report December 2000: Tracing progress by Commonwealth agencies towards the goals of the Government Online Strategy [online], available: www.govonline.gov.au/projects/strategy/ProgressReport2000/index.htm, [accessed 9 Jan 2002] Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 12 of 13 National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2000f, Whole of Government Services [online], available: www.govonline.gov.au/projects/wholeofgovonline/index.htm, [accessed 24 Jan 2002] National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2001, Gatekeeper Frequently Asked Questions [online], available: www.govonline.gov.au/projects/publickey/FAQs.htm, [accessed 28 Jan 2002] National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 2001a, Government Online: Online Survey Round 3 Results – March 2001 [online], available: www.govonline.gov.au/projects/strategy/Progress_Report_Round_3_2001/ind ex.htm, [accessed 9 Jan 2002] Phillips, M. 2001, A Civilian Action, CIO [online], available: www.cio.com.au [accessed 13 Jan 2002] Power, K. 2001, With Liberty & E-Gov for All, CIO [online], available: www.cio.com.au [accessed 5 Dec 2001] Alicja Trefler e-Business 1 Page 13 of 13