eGovernment Transformation: Understanding Customer Value at Marlborough District Council

Abstract

The drive continues around the world for eGovernment and the New Zealand public sector is no different. The public sector continue to develop and evolve their eGovernment solutions yet eGovernment maturity has not progressed significantly nor are eGovernment solutions evaluated, specifically not from a customer perspective.

eGovernment has been defined as the process of delivering information and services electronically using technology to customers of the public sector. The transitional stages of maturity going from a basic digital presence to more complex interactive environments describes eGovernment transformation. eServices are a subset of the many functions that eGovernment can deliver and provides the online interactive information and customer service component. There have been many benefits and challenges to eGovernment and these are mainly targeting the customer with: increasing access to information; increasing access to public officials; new opportunities for customer collaboration. Internal benefits are enhancing efficiency; and reduced costs. Yet academic research in evaluating eServices is limited and mainly applied from an internal perspective not from the perspective of the customers who are using these eServices and where the majority of benefits are focused. The customer value is defined as what these services are worth to customers.

The setting for the case study is a local government organisation, the Marlborough District Council (MDC), which undertakes district and regional council functions. Marlborough District Council plays a pivotal role in the community, providing essential services including core infrastructure, regulatory functions, public information, community facilities and services, environmental management and information management, with a diverse range of information to be made publically available electronically. Marlborough District Council is developing its eGovernment transformation and must understand the value of its eServices to its customers and how these eServices can be successfully evaluated for prioritisation and funding. It is difficult without understanding the value of these eServices to get organisational priority and budgets even though these are promoted throughout the world.

The case study evaluated two specific eServices, Property Files Online and Smart Maps. Prior to the case study little was known of the success of these services other than usage growth and anecdotal feedback. The methodology consisted of interviews with internal and external customers using various professions and perspectives. Google analytical data was collected from these specific eServices and collated with the interview data to provide an objective perspective. The framework chosen for evaluating these eServices is the IS success model. The IS success model has been successfully applied academically to evaluate the success of IT systems and has been previously adapted for measuring eCommerce and static websites. The proposed model for evaluating these eServices was from academic literature to derive at an appropriate model with key attributes assigned to assist with evaluation. The IS success model constructs were: Trust in MDC; trust in technology; trust in eServices; information quality; system quality; service quality; usage/continued use; user satisfaction; and net benefit customer value.

The data collected was applied to the constructs of the model and evaluated against the attributes and overall findings summarised. The findings were: The value in evaluating eServices; customer dependency on MDC; the value in engaging with customers; and the benefits to a knowledge society. The evaluation of these eServices validated the IS success model with a variation of the model produced based on the analysis. The new IS success constructs removed the trust in technology and included: Information quality; system quality; service quality; trust in eServices; usage/continued use; user satisfaction; net benefit – customer value and knowledge society; trust in MDC.

The recommendations identified to address the findings for MDC to consider: Creating a digital strategy with supporting eServices roadmap; setting up a program to evaluate eServices – using the adapted IS SUCCESS model; set up an eServices risk management framework; establish an eService customer engagement programme; and to build a Community Smart Map.