Dr Robert Morris: Governments have to reduce expenses and increase efficiency in their service delivery through "shared services".

Meet one of Fortune magazine’s 50 “Smartest People in Tech”, right here at eGov Global Exchange 2011. Dr Robert Morris, Vice President of Services Research and Global Labs at IBM Research, was named the “Smartest Scientist” in the magazine’s 2010 list, putting him in the illustrious company of IT industry personalities such as Steve Jobs (smartest CEO), Mary Meeker (smartest analyst) and Mark Zuckerberg (smartest founder).

Dr Morris is responsible for IBM’s worldwide research efforts in Services and for the IBM Research Laboratories in China, India, Japan, Brazil and Australia. Here, he shares his thoughts on the evolution of e-Government, the challenges facing government today and the role that technology plays in addressing those challenges. 

How has e-Government evolved over the past 10 years?
The last 10 years have seen a wide acceptance of the concept of eGovernment among governmental organisations in many countries, in particular the utilisation of information and communication technologies (ICT) to provide and improve online services to citizens and other entities that typically depend on services provided by a government.

Perhaps the best example of a successful e-Government service that has matured over the past decade is the electronic tax filing system. According to McKinsey, in many countries more than 70 per cent of the taxpayers file electronically. In addition, many other services, such as renewing drivers’ licences, paying parking tickets, applying for government benefits, etc., can now be conducted online.  

The 2011 Waseda University World e-Government Ranking identifies 50 countries that have made significant strides as measured by seven different indicators of the progress of e-Government transformation, including Application Services, for example, e-Tender Systems, e-Voting Systems, e-Health Systems, to name just a few. Services such as these, as they become increasingly available, will have a significant impact on the lives of citizens.

What are the key challenges facing government today?
In my opinion, the biggest challenge is cost containment through increased efficiency of service provisioning and delivery. Citizens everywhere are becoming less tolerant of government spending increases and demanding less bureaucracy and more transparency in their operations. In response, governmental organisations are beginning to be more aggressive in deploying IT and communication platforms that can drive operational efficiency and serve as delivery mechanisms for a growing collection of e-services.   

The problem facing many governments today is the proliferation of multiple agencies who maintain their own IT infrastructure and information without a proper avenue for sharing across agencies - a “siloed” environment. This phenomenon is prevalent at all levels of government. This leads to waste and inefficiency.

What role can technology play in addressing these challenges?
The biggest opportunity for governments is to use the right technology, such as virtualisation and cloud computing, to share information and applications across multiple agencies, reduce the need to maintain and manage redundant data and offer services that can leverage information across the entire governmental infrastructure.  In other words, much as the private sector is already doing, governments too have to reduce expenses and increase efficiency in their service delivery through “shared services”.