Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

The citizens’ view
Future priorities 3
In general, countries’ future priorities should be to
develop and promote the convenience and security
of eGovernment services. In addition, expanding and
promoting simple-to-use transactional services
should be a key focus. People who use transactional
services tend to have higher levels of satisfaction
and a more favorable opinion of their government’s
performance than those who use informational
services alone. Simple transactions should bring in
new users and, if trends hold, positively influence
attitudes toward eGovernment overall.
The effective bundling of services also may help
take-up. Singapore and Japan, for example, have had
success bundling services related to starting a new
business. Quick and immediate access to a group of
services means there is greater likelihood that citizens
will use them.
More specific priorities can be seen when countries
are divided into categories based on Internet penetration
rates. For each of the country types—high,
medium and low penetration—we have divided
eGovernment services into quadrants based on
usage, interest and impact of the service.
• Critical improvement: These are services of high
interest and of high potential use and impact.
They should be among the immediate priorities for
development.
• High leverage: These are services that already
are strong and of high impact and interest.
Government should spend more time promoting
these services.
• Less critical improvement: These are services that
are used infrequently, of little interest to users and
of low impact to government.
• Low leverage: These are services that are fairly
strong but where development of the service is
unlikely to add additional value. The emphasis
should be on promotion for these services.
High-penetration countries.
In high-penetration countries, renewing or applying
for passports, drivers’ licenses, marriage certificates
or birth certificates are all key services to develop
and promote (see Figure 13). Online health information
is another priority area that will drive overall
satisfaction—it is likely to be high impact, but there
is capacity for improvement in quality. In contrast,
applying for benefits or government jobs online are
currently less critical improvement areas. These are
services less frequently used and of less interest to
nonusers. Filing taxes is not a critical improvement
area in high-penetration countries, probably reflecting
its already high rating among users. However,
because it is a high-impact service of high interest
to users, governments should continue to promote it.
Medium-penetration countries.
Tax services online represent high-leverage services
in medium-penetration countries—they drive satisfaction
and are highly rated. Looking for health
information is an area where improvement is
required—it can have a high impact on overall
satisfaction and is of interest to citizens, but is
underused (see Figure 14).
Low-penetration countries.
Online tax services are a major driver of eGovernment
performance in low-penetration countries, as they are
already highly leveraged. Searching for government
jobs online may be a key area for improvement. This
is an underused service that would likely have a
positive impact on overall satisfaction. Experience
levels tend to be lower for eGovernment services
such as searching for government jobs and determining
benefits eligibility in these countries; however,
these services may hold great appeal and may be
key to encouraging initial usage of eGovernment
(see Figure 15).
3
We note that the recommendations we make in this section are based primarily on the results from this citizen survey, which did not cover all 206 services
of the main research. Thus, there may be other services that fall into the categories of critical improvement and high leverage. While these priorities provide
a starting point, we emphasize that governments need to conduct their own research on their citizens to focus their efforts most accurately.
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