Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

The United States
2004 Rank: 2 (joint)
2003 Rank: 3
2002 Rank: 3
Vision introduced: 2001
Vision title:
Expanded Electronic
Government
Vision summary:
To expand the use of the Internet to empower
citizens, allowing them to request customized
information from Washington when they need
it, not just when Washington wants to give it to
them. True reform involves not just giving people
information, but giving citizens the freedom to
act upon it.
Regular Internet users (percent of population):
66.98 percent
Regular Internet users who have ever visited an
eGovernment site: 76 percent
The United States
In 2004, the United States improved enough to
secure a joint second-place ranking. With an overall
increase in maturity of approximately 7 percent, the
country kept pace with Singapore, although it lost
some ground to world-leading Canada. The United
States had modest improvement in customer relationship
management maturity of only 3 percent,
with its most notable improvements coming in the
areas of tax and postal e-services for businesses.
Overall, seven services improved from publish to
interact level and three from a publish or interact
level to a transact level.
The United States saw some changes to its
eGovernment leadership during 2003. Mark Forman,
the federal chief information officer, resigned in
August. A new head of eGovernment was appointed—
Karen Evans, administrator of eGovernment and
Information Technology under the Office of
Management and Budget.
The country’s eGovernment vision remains as first
articulated in 2001. However, the strategy was
updated in April 2003 and adheres to three guiding
principles: citizen-centered (not bureaucracy or
agency-centered); results-oriented, producing
measurable improvements for citizens; and marketbased,
actively promoting innovation.
The federal government is taking a two-pronged
approach to eGovernment. One is through modernizing
information technology investments within
agencies using the principles of e-business. The
other is through integrating such investments
across agencies, centered on groups of customers
(such as individuals, businesses, other governments
and federal government employees). Specific initiatives
include expanding and improving FirstGov.gov
(www.firstgov.gov), the citizen-centered government
portal, so that citizens gain access to all information
and services “within three clicks”; developing a federal
government-wide public key infrastructure; and
moving all agencies to a single e-procurement portal,
www.FedBizOpps.gov, for large solicitations.
Work on these initiatives is well under way. For
example, the E-Authentication initiative—part of the
government’s larger public key infrastructure strategy—is
moving from its initial phase of deployment
using the E-Authentication Gateway to a new phase
allowing multiple, federated identity authentication
services to coexist within a single architecture. (The
goal is to provide a model for E-Authentication that
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