Governments usually strike both the business community and citizens as too monolithic to respond to their changing needs in a timely fashion, but the Hong Kong SAR government has been riding the technology wave to make its range of e-services more user-friendly and cost-effective to develop. Since its promulgation of the Digital 21 Strategy in 1998, an initiative to leverage on IT to retain Hong Kong's competitive edge and drive economic growth, the government has made a range of services-including the submission of trade-related documents, bill payments, land register searches, and sports facility bookings-available on the Internet.
But simply providing paperless services is not enough. "The creation of Web sites and putting a range of services on the Internet is merely the first step," said John S.C. Wong, assistant government CIO at the Office of the Government CIO (OGCIO). The ultimate direction of e-government, according to Wong, is to create customer-centric, rather than government-centric, services.
Striving for integration
To that end, the government has been rolling up its sleeves to integrate the processes underlying service development, in a bid to retain the same user interface regardless of what services citizens use and what changes occur at the back-end.
"We have around 100 departments providing a wide array of services. We don't want to have different interfaces to confuse companies and individuals. It's also a frustrating experience to submit the same information many times simply because those systems are not integrated," Wong points out.
One simple scenario to illustrate the potential inconveniences a lack of integration presents citizens is a change of address. Imagine your company has moved and you need to notify the government departments of your relocation to have the bills arrive at your new office.
When the departmental systems and databases are disparate, you would need to get in touch with them one by one, submitting your new contact details each time. Not only does integration benefit citizens, but it also makes the provision of government services increasingly cost effective.
Learn how to settle
The key to integration lies on settling on a common process and technology and then sticking to it. If the some 100 departments in the government separately tweak the processes underlying their services or develop offerings of their own, duplication and waste are sure to result.
This is why, Wong says, the government's strategy rests on codifying processes that can reused when developing and introducing new services, as well as taking advantage of open standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).
"Our priority is to buy and reuse technology and processes. We only build new systems from the ground up when that's not an option," says Wong.
Late last year, the Hong Kong government successfully implemented US-based middleware supplier Actional's service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology to run its online services exchange.
SOA is a method that involves loosely coupling software and services to the hardware, operating system and network. It allows Web-based applications to dynamically interact with other applications using open standards such as XML, UDDI and SOAP. Data exchange between departments and subsidiaries or with external clients is easily achieved, and changes made to the software cost much less than they would normally because they can be instituted independently of the existing hardware and operating systems.
Cost savings can also come from reducing repetition in the processes underlying e-services, says Wong. Standardisation allows the government to expedite service development using established processes, thus responding to changes in a more rapid manner.
Take electronic forms. New e-forms for services from different departments can be created using the same template. To date over 200 e-forms for a range of activities-including renewing a drivers' licence, registering a company and reserving sports facilities-are available to the public via the government's Web site, all employing a standard basic format.
Paving the way for business
Using SOA, the government has integrated disparate customer databases from agencies as disparate as the Water Supplies Department, the Auxiliary Medical Service, Hong Kong Post, the Housing Department, the Lands Department and the Rating and Valuation Department.
The benefits to the public are clear. For instance, when citizens change their billing addresses at one department, the change is automatically reflected in other agencies' databases.
Companies also do not need to worry about whether government policy changes may affect the way they submit trade-related documents or force them to overhaul their systems. "The companies do not need to change anything. They can still fill out the standardised forms on the web and continue their business as usual," says Wong.
"This is crucial as we have so many companies operating in Hong Kong, and the majority of them are SMEs. It is a huge issue if they need to adjust their systems every time the government changes something," he adds.
But to achieve a standard interface, numerous departments must communicate and reach a consensus- a massive, complex undertaking that the Hong Kong government is determined to achieve.
"If we haven't done this and created standardised processes, we will be facing more complications in the future, given the rapid pace of change in Hong Kong," Wong says. The government is also banking on its sleeker, integrated nature making it easier to forge partnership with private organisations in the future. "By teaming up with the private sector, we can create a one-stop shop to serve citizens better."
Governments turning to shared services
The concept of shared services remains relatively new in Asia Pacific, despite the fact that developed economies in the region have increasingly embraced the notion for cost benefits.
According to David Wilson, managing partner, government finance and performance management at Accenture, shared services consolidates administrative or back office support functions such as IT, payroll management, and invoicing from across various departments or agencies into a single, stand-alone unit whose only mission is to provide those services effectively and efficiently.
Governments such as those in Hong Kong and Singapore have already established IT shared services centres.
The main drivers of shared services include fiscal pressure, labour cost, and the need to transfer resources from back to front offices that deal directly with the public.
Shared services also facilitates interaction with vendors and partners. "Rather than dealing with 10 departments in 10 different ways, shared services allow enterprises to deal with just one unit from the government," notes Wilson.
Wilson adds that the shared service model is a proven one, resulting in average cost savings of 25 per cent when it is implemented in the private sector.
"Many countries have inexpensive labour and thus don't have much incentive to do shared services," said Wilson.
However, shared services doesn't necessarily translate into outsourcing and job cuts. Many governments employ their own people to run shared services centres, rather than outsourcing them to third party providers.
"Governments by and large need to keep jobs and would be much slower in outsourcing compared to private organisations," Wilson explains.
He advises governments to engage unions and employees early on in any shared service initiatives as such projects might imply labour issues.
Autor: Leung Wai Man
Quelle: MIS Magazine, 10.06.2005
