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Introduction
The 21st century governance and business practices have gone far; digital transformation is one of the most recent and ground-breaking phenomena in these sectors. The transformation provides countless opportunities for service delivery and trade, which is acknowledged by all shareholders and the majority of countries.
The present paper will be focused on the role of leadership in digital transformation (specifically, e-government), the best practices and lessons learned from them, and apply it to the Emirati context.
Background
The history of e-transformation in the UAE began in February 2001, when the first payment tool eDirham was introduced by the Ministry of Finance. The purpose of the tool was to substitute for the conventional modes of charging for the services rendered by the government. The following year, the Committee in charge of the eGovernment Program was launched. The subsequent years can be characterized by a variety of plans and add-ons to the initial project which was to provide the individual users and businesses with access to government-delivered services.
The role of the leadership in shifting to e-government is definitive. Indeed, the goals, the mission, and the vision of pursuing e-government are up to the leader to communicate. The leader should also be aware of all the limitations and potential difficulties in the pursuit of e-government. A CIO job description is currently featuring the necessity of jurisprudence expertise, awareness of the current trends in information technology and service delivery, data and partnership management skills, and, most importantly, IT project experience and security compliance.
Thus, CIOs, in the modern understanding of the term, are basically business leaders (the powerful driving force of corporate processes) with experience in IT. An excessive focus on technology is practically as harmful for their project as gaps in expertise. Deciding to lead a shift to e-government, a CIO should primarily ask themselves whether:
- The reasons for and priorities of e-government pursuit are clear;
- The society is ready for this;
- The motivation to transform is present;
- The e-government projects are selected in the most optimal way;
- The resistance within the government can be overpowered;
- The progress can be measured;
- It is possible to build sustainable relationships with the private sector;
- E-government can enhance citizen’s participation and social feedback (The Working Group on E-Government in the Developing World 3-4).
This roadmap was outlined back in 2001 when the implementation of e-government was still on the project stage, when the social media were rudimentary. The values of e-government implementation are most comprehensively enlisted in this Roadmap, which is why the leadership’s performance in implementation of e-government will be evaluated based on whether these concerns are considered.
Research aims and rationale
Many of the values behind e-government and digital transformation in general remain unchanged. Yet, the practices implemented by UAE and on the global scale are constantly developing, which is why the present paper is relevant for IT management. The aim of this research, therefore, is to highlight the role of leadership in implementing e-government (and e-transformation), determine the best and worst practices for implementation based on the leaders’ performance.
Research questions and methodology
As proposed, the present paper will focus on several case studies examining the implementation of e-government and digital transformation in UAE and in the world. The effective practices will be reviewed as well as the countries where the process of implementation was not entirely successful. Through the case study analysis, the paper will attempt to answer the following questions:
- What is the role of leadership in e-government shift and digital transformation?
- How the leadership performs its roles in e-government implementation in UAE and other countries?
- What are some noteworthy practices that can be carried out as lessons from different countries’ cases?
To ensure the cases are representative of the practices, the leadership’s mistakes will be analyzed closely. Considering the exploratory nature of the paper, an interpretative approach will be adopted: each case study summary will be followed by a commentary wherein the practices and the leadership’s actions will be evaluated.
UAE e-government experience
Dubai e-government case
This case study explores the implementation of e-government in Dubai, focusing on the strategy and the promotion of the policy under the leadership of the high level Executive Committee formed specifically for these purposes. The Committee audited the government departments and strategically benchmarked other countries’ implementation strategies (Sethi and Sethi 185-186). It turned out that the IT-readiness was distributed unevenly among varying departments: while some of them already had a Web-platform and were actively rendering services via the Web, the others were missing from the digital domain whatsoever. The benchmarking resulted in a multitude of implementation plans, which suggested that there was no unified strategy to follow and that the team should create their own.
The baseline strategy was to create a centered information network to connect the department and leverage their visibility on the Net. Further, the team was split in two. The eServices sub-team attended to the departments to relocate their services onto digital base; it also managed the www.dubai.ae hub. The Shared Services catered for the integration application and individual departments’ content management.
The result of this and subsequent strategies resulted in landing 90% of government services online in 6 years (Sethi and Sethi 194).
Commentary
The success of Dubai government can be attributed to several factors.
Firstly, the robust and at the same time flexible ICT infrastructure catered for smooth transformation process on every tier through the utilization of well-tuned and secured servers, internetwork security, routing, etc.
Secondly, the centralized approach the government adopted did not mean the departments were coerced to follow a unified one-size-fits-all routine. Rather, the eServices unit encouraged the departments to devise their own web-based services. In a similar manner, the e-government let the departments enable the services while it focused on creating the service essentials that all departments shared (e.g., fee collection, customer care, and so forth). Such balance between the centralized eService implementation and decentralized enablement encouraged the departments to share their best practices, save expenditures, spend less time to market the services, and follow a standardized yet flexible routine.
The e-government also realized the likelihood of collapse without the population’s support, which is why it developed and implemented an array of human resource development and citizen education programs to encourage acceptance among both the employees and the users.
All this would be impossible without a leader to clearly allocate the goals and objectives of the new system. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum was a source of inspiration for all persons involved. His Excellence regarded e-government as a project that mattered for him personally. A passionate attitude spilled over to the departments and ignited commitment in their leaders as well.
UAE: Innovative approach case
This research focuses on the implementation of e-government in the UAE as a whole. The author starts by exploring the implementation strategies in some countries. He disambiguates the notion of citizen-centric e-government and tries to apply the concept to the 2011-2013 UAE Government strategy (Al-Khouri 25-26). Following the four-stage model of Information, Interaction, Transaction and Transformation, the status of e-service delivery in the UAE in 2004 can be estimated as follows:
- Information. More than 50% of all e-services had some presence on the Web to release service-related content.
- Interaction. 20% provided downloadable applications and other tools to receive the services.
- Transaction. 23% offered online soft-copies delivery.
- Transformation. None of the services (0%) were integrated with other services to process and render the citizen’s requirements collectively (Al-Khouri 26).
Currently, Abu Dhabi stands out as the emirate to render the most e-services nationwide (above 350, compared to around 100 in Dubai, less than 50 in Sharjah, and still less in other emirates). However, Dubai has made considerable progress towards integration of various services. These two emirates present suitable platforms for rendering citizen-centered services not only because the service coverage is the highest but also because the transformation has evolved at the fastest pace there.
Commentary
E-government implementation has to be accepted by the citizens, otherwise the enterprise will inevitably float. The author notes that the visionary leadership of the UAE Government has had a multitude of projects related to e-transformation, with diverse objectives and aims, but the underlying goal shared by all of them was ensuring the population trusted the new program. The citizens’ faith was the factor to make the transformation possible, subsequently enhance the accountability of all transactions, and motivate different departments and shareholders to cooperate.
The vision allocated by the leadership, therefore, was consistent with improving the citizens’ experience with the e-services. For that sake, the strategy subsumed the alignment of UAE-based e-services with those worldwide, relying on the global standards and best practices. Special emphasis was made on education, health care, legal and governmental services for individuals.
The strategy relied on the principles followed earlier by Dubai Government in terms of human resource development: various programs were designed to boost the population’s IT literacy and the employees’ IT-related competencies. Furthermore, the Ministries were encouraged to tailor their actions to public policy. The strategy, however, could use further enhancing the citizens’ QOL in terms of providing more personalized channels accessible 24/7, to engage more people in e-service usage. An access via smartcard ID would also opt for ease of use and make the population more willing to access the services.
E-government experiences globally
South African civil servant case
This case is concerned with the project of “Golaganang,” which roughly translates as “come together.” It was a 2002 South African project designed to unify the government and the public sector. The aims of the project were ambitious. Within the first half-year of its implementation, it was aimed at providing about 50,000 employees with Internet-connected computers (Mutula 44-46).
The employees were supposed to pay according to their income: the PCs would cost the high-SES individuals about $1620 distributed evenly over a 36-month period. The lower-SES persons would be subsidized by the government and pay only about $360 in total. The aim of the project was to eliminate inequality in the access to technology. This project would also benefit the local economy because the government was thinking of using PC manufactured on the South African premises.
The project, however, was a failure. The PC vendor was demanding that the government warrants the value of the computers, which was a risk the government could not afford taking (Mutula 54). Besides, there was no guarantee the payments would be provided in advance. No other alternatives were considered sustainable in the long run, which is why the project was dropped.
Commentary
One major flaw that the project’s failure can be attributed to is the leadership’s. The government started off an ambitious and potentially costly project (an estimated 80 million USD) without so much as a pilot scheme. Besides, the scope of the project was too ambitious for the relatively small time scale (6 months). Additionally, the government relied too much on the partnership and the employees’ enthusiasm to forecast the danger.
Still, the project can provide some lessons for learning. Firstly, the government chose HP as its partner in this public-private joint. If there were no complications, such a choice would have been beneficial in strategic terms. The strategy on South African premises was communicated from the very top down because HP’s CEO was holding a position in the President’s ICT executive advisory council back in 2002. Another valuable point is that the Golaganang project received much appraisal on the cabinet members’ and social service workers’ part.
YerelNet portal, Turkey case
This case deals with the establishment of a unified government portal YerelNet (“LocalNet”) in Turkey (Rocheleau 217). Apart from covering the relevant information about the local government (which they publish themselves) the platform facilitates communication between the local governments. The platform contains a full list of governments, their bids and tenders, provides access to media coverage of the governments, and summarizes the results of elections for each Turkish government since 1963.
Created by the Turkish Public Administration Institute and the Centre of Local Government Research and Education, YerelNet was the first platform where the data on local governments could be published. The data hosted on the site include those from over 3,000 cities, almost 35,000 villages, and over 1,000 associations (Rocheleau 219). The shareholders of the project were the governments themselves, the private sector engaged in business affairs with them, universities, and the population.
The project can be deemed successful because the project initiators have extensive knowledge of the content they publish and can receive new information first-hand due to a considerable amount of contacts they have. Still, the challenges YerelNet had to face were profound. For one, it encountered some promotional and funding issues. Besides, the access to ICT is uneven on the territory of Turkey, which does not facilitate wide usage.
Commentary
The last point is a serious flaw of implementation strategy, which the leadership should not have overlooked. To facilitate the access to e-government platforms, the leadership could have firstly designed a project similar to that of South Africa. Firstly, they could have located the exact places where the access was the lowest and target the ICT provision there. Second, they could cooperate with the private sector and provide the troubled locations with access to the portal. Learning on South African mistakes, the Turkish project could have been stretched in time and use multiple vendors, whichever were the closest to the problem zones.
At first, YerelNet does not seem to be a worthy project because it provides data rather than services. The value of it, however, is justified by just how skillfully YerelNet is constructed to meet the leadership’s purposes. It is an open source which does not require subscription, which facilitates the usage. It is a platform for local governments to coordinate their efforts and discuss projects more efficiently, at the same time receiving instant feedback from the citizens. Speaking about the latter, they have an opportunity to ask their questions to the local government and have them answered on the forum. All this speaks for the determined leadership catering for financial optimization of e-government and their citizens’ needs.
Chicago open data case
Another case is devoted to Chicago with its open data project. Open data was regarded by Chicago’s mayor Rahm Emanuel as his personal project from the beginning of his service. In 2010, the e-portal data.cityofchicago.org was launched, and two years later the mayor signed an order to mandate transformation (an integration of all service delivery establishments in Chicago) within this platform (Kassen 508). To coordinate the data contributed to the portal, the Advisory Group was formed.
The goals communicated by Emanuel covered not only administrative transparency but also the enhancement of service delivery through open communication and involvement. The project was designed to improve the accountability of the local government and improve the citizens’ quality of life.
There are over 600 datasets on the Chicago portal, and the content is on the constant update (Kassen 510). Due to the critical mass of data and perpetual outsourcing, the city’s services are on an unprecedented rise. The services that can be accessed by the users include those provided by the government and businesses like DataMade (app development), Purple Binder (health care), Cartografika (maps), and Rob Paral & Associates (consulting). The growth of businesses is predicted to continue.
Commentary
This case was chosen to represent the role of leadership in the U.S. because the implementation of the open data platform in Chicago deserves every appraisal. Ever since the inception of American digital government, the Chicago project was market as the most empowering for several reasons.
First, the main challenge in realization of digital government initiatives is that the strategy is implemented “at” the citizens, not “with” them. The mayor of Chicago explicitly noted in his goals statement that he was aiming at encouraging citizen participation and dialog. At that, the open data platform designed and implemented locally can potentiate community involvement and proactivity. Subsequently, the proactive attitudes of the citizens and agencies trigger immediate reaction from the government in relation to the issues the community specifies. The problems of infrastructure, environment, communications, etc., are presented to the government in an illustrative form and call it to action.
Apart from communication, Chicago has seen an unsurpassed business growth and integration of multiple services to cater for the communities’ good. With mutual transparency achieved, the city is flourishing with both global-scale branch establishments and local digital enterprises, which, again, was one of the mayor’s goals at the project’s baseline. The business growth has facilitated instant job creation and outsourcing expertize – a step to increased data availability within and outside the city, as well as gaining and sharing experience.
Interestingly enough, the mayor of Chicago seemed to have foreseen the 2012 Digital Government Strategy that put open-data approach at the top of the priority list.
Discussion
As demonstrated by the UAE and Dubai cases, the implementation of e-government in the country still has to undergo many development stages. The role of leadership, however, is critical for the Emirati e-government: Dubai transformation success was largely due to the leader’s passion and practical approach. Under Sheikh Al Maktoum’s guidance, the centralization-decentralization ratio was perfectly balanced and the teams showed mutual support and commitment.
Regardless of the outcome, implementation practices provide several important points to consider, which can be summarized in a chart:
The best practices, therefore, are open source/open data platforms and government – private sector partnerships to enhance service delivery. The flaws in implementation were mainly the result of the leaders not asking themselves questions regarding the priorities, readiness, and whether there are more optimal ways of implementation. The best leadership qualities are commitment and passion, as well as the ability to forecast the tendencies and communicate clear goals, just as in any establishment.
Conclusion
The perceived role of leadership in digital transformation and e-government is consistent with that of any successful business leader’s role. In the Emirati context, leadership (as represented by Sheikh Al Maktoum and other e-government innovators) adopts all the best practices of the global digital transformation, namely, goal-setting, ability to plan and forecast, commitment, and healthy pragmatism.
Works Cited
Al-Khouri, Ali M. “An Innovative Approach for E-Government Transformation.” International Journal of Managing Value and Supply Chains 2.1 (2011): 22-43. Print.
Kassen, Maxat. “A promising phenomenon of open data: A case study of the Chicago open data project.” Government Information Quarterly 30.4 (2013): 508-513. Print.
Mutula, Stephen M. “E-Government’s Role in Poverty Alleviation: Case Study of South Africa.” Cases on Progressions and Challenges in ICT Utilization for Citizen-Centric Governance. Ed. Hakikur Rahman. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012. 44-68. Print.
Rocheleau, Bruce. “YerelNet Local Network: A Web Portal and Web-Enabled Communication Platform for Turkish Local Governments.” Case Studies on Digital Government. Ed. Bruce Rocheleau. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, Inc., 2007. 217-229. Print.
Sethi, Neerja, and Vijay Sethi. “E-government Implementation: A Case Study of Dubai e-Government.” Special Interest Group E-Governance. SIGeGOV, 2008. Web.
The Working Group on E-Government in the Developing World. Roadmap for E-government in the Developing World: 10 Questions E-Government Leaders Should Ask Themselves. Los Angeles, CA: Pacific Council on International Policy, 2002. Print.
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