Arthur Riel, Denisa Popescu and Luisita Guanlao
This method is expected to become more prevalent in the future as it recognizes the autonomous nature of government ministries while eliminating the inherent inefficiencies of decentralized management solutions.
5. Conclusion
As governments embark on e‐Government strategies whether to benefit their citizens, their businesses or to improve inter‐ministry effectiveness, they are faced with the reality that most governments are decentralized in nature with many autonomous ministries working in very different technology directions. The problems of decentralization can be overcome using one of three management strategies:
• The government can created an enforced centralization of management and budget through a government CIO.
• The government can create a virtual centralized focus of control using one of the more powerful ministries to serve as a proxy for a national CIO or create a willing coalition of several ministries to act without 100 % participation, bringing in less willing partners over time as the success of the coalition is realized.
• The government can create a third party strategy team and empower them to distribute budget monies to those ministries that follow a common IT strategy, effectively punishing those who work on projects outside of an agreed agenda.
A centralized model is the most efficient, but also the rarest given the intrinsic nature of government structures. While centralization can be faked through a powerful ministry or coalition of ministries, this process is much less efficient than a centralized approach. Countries like Belgium have begun using a centralized budget as an interesting mechanism to enforce centralized management without changing the internal structures of ministries. The latter is expected to be a rapidly growing method for e‐Government deployments.
References
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