Accenture's New e-Gov Report

Accenture has just released a new e-Government report (May, 2004), e-Government Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value (PDF, 3MB).



This is the fifth year that Accenture has surveyed international e-Gov efforts, and they report that they have found five overall trends: eGovernment advances are diminishing; eGovernment leaders are reaping tangible savings; Adoption of e-gov remains a challenge; The challenge of integrating e-gov is changing; and Personalization is emerging. (This list starts on page 6).



For the fourth year in a row, the top three "maturity" spots were taken by Canada first, followed by Singapore and the United States tied for second.



The report offers a very nice comparison of how citizens of different countries are using e-government (page 25), and presents a series of mini case-studies about selected best practices. The best practice most related to planning was Singapore's Business Registrations and Licences portal:



"Singapore offers one of the most interesting services we have seen this year for registering a new business (https://licences.business.gov.sg). This is a highly interactive website that uses a shopping-cart analogy called "My License Cart." A user first chooses the type of business to be registered from a broad list that covers everything from vendors selling cooked food to mining and quarrying operations. The website then provides a list of all relevant licenses, permits and administrative matters for the business, from which the user can choose, apply for and add to the shopping cart. At checkout, the user can view the total amount to be paid, make the payment with a credit card and then check the status of the application online."