Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

Foreword
Since 2000, Accenture has been studying and reporting
on trends in the international eGovernment
landscape. During that time we have seen countries
around the globe rush to build an online mirror of
the offline world—and then step back to reflect on
what value that strategy had brought to them. For
most, it brought a realization of the need for change.
This year’s report, eGovernment Leadership: High
Performance, Maximum Value, finds many countries
at a crossroads. Their advances in maturity are
slowing down. They find themselves looking for the
strategies that will drive high performance—better
outcomes in a more cost-effective manner—and propel
them toward the ultimate goal of eGovernment:
whole-of-government service transformation.
Governments are taking many different paths to
try to reach this point. Some have slowly built more
sophisticated transactional capabilities into their
programs. Others have regrouped and developed
more focused action plans that target maximum
value from every eGovernment investment they
make. The leaders reap the real value of eGovernment,
not only through measurably improved customer
service, but also through tangible savings in time,
money and human resources to deliver the services.
Yet, we find that even the most advanced countries
still have work to do to derive greater value. This
year we polled citizens to get insight into their
attitudes and practices related to their countries’
eGovernment programs. We learned there is a gap
between what governments provide and what
citizens know of the offerings or would like their
governments to provide. As a result, take-up of
eGovernment is far from maximized. Until that gap
is bridged, governments will never get all of the value
possible out of their eGovernment investments.
In this report, we aim to help governments identify
the course of action that will most likely deliver
high performance in eGovernment. They need to
start by taking a balanced approach to determining
eGovernment value. They need to assess the service
outcomes that will have the greatest impact and
balance those outcomes against the costs to achieve
them. That way, they can target their investments
wisely—and build transparency into the process for
their stakeholders.
Governments need to integrate services seamlessly
across horizontal and vertical levels of government.
The technology challenges and the complexities of
governance mean the task will not be easy, but only
then will they be able to provide the truly seamless
service that will drive broad take-up of services.
Above all, governments need to aspire to service
transformation. Highly effective strategies will use
the opportunities presented by Internet-based technologies
to alter the delivery of government services
dramatically. In some cases, services will be transformed
(and improved) so radically that old service
models will disappear completely. High-performance
governments will not be afraid to let them go.
Stephen J. Rohleder
Group Chief Executive—Government
Vivienne Jupp
Managing Partner—
eGovernment Services
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