Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

Under Japan’s new eGovernment action plan the
existing eGovernment portal, www.e-gov.go.jp, is
scheduled to be revamped with a more user-centric
focus. As it exists now, the portal offers several
different agency-focused search types and links
to government websites. However, the changes
are already beginning to take place. As part of an
enhancement in January 2004, guidance and navigation
for online applications for administrative
processes moved to a user-intention-based organization.
This first step will now be extended across
other government information and services. By
2005, the government plans to have the portal provide
services in a more convenient, intelligible way,
with a focus on quality rather than quantity. There
is explicit reference to “one-stop” services for both
citizens and businesses.
While the central portal itself is not fully customer
centric, Japan has a number of innovative, customer-friendly
services worth noting. The
multipayment network was developed through
cooperation between the public and private sectors
and launched in January 2004. Through the Payeasy
service of this network system, citizens and
businesses will be able to pay fees or taxes to
government within a secure environment. e-Tax
(www.e-tax.nta.go.jp) is the first big service that
will use this system and the number of governmental
services accepting Pay-easy will increase
in the future.
of national and local government agencies and the
obligations of private companies. The law will be
enforced within two years.
To encourage adoption of eGovernment, the
Japanese government has instituted an annual
Systemized Administration Week every October.
The events promote eGovernment to the public,
increase employee motivation and bring together
different government organizations in an opportunity
to collaborate. Typical activities during the week
include broadcasting commercials, holding seminars
and symposiums, gathering citizen feedback and
awarding prizes for promoting eGovernment.
While Japan has intensified its efforts and made significant
advances both in developing its customer
focus and promoting eGovernment adoption, it has
room for further improvement still. Japan ranked
19 out of 22 countries in customer relationship
management maturity this year. Looking ahead to
the rest of 2004 and beyond, if Japan develops its
customer focus with the same concerted effort it
used to build its strong eGovernment breadth and
depth, then the country will be positioned for even
more significant advances in its overall maturity.
The Sogyo Navi (Starting Business Navigator) portal,
www.sogyo-navi.jp/index.html, is a one-stop shop for
users to obtain information about starting a business.
Sogyo Navi was developed to examine the feasibility
of a one-stop process for applications and transactions
enabled by cooperation between the public
and private sectors, and to explore the best ways
to develop a user-focused portal. The portal was
developed with collaboration between the national
government and the private sector, led by the
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Online
filing will be operational in the future.
The importance of protecting personal information
has increased along with the popularity of IT in
Japan. In 2003, the Diet passed a personal data
protection law to establish basic requirements for
handling personal information, the responsibilities
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