The Role of Business Process Management in Success of the e-Government Project Implementation

International Conference, Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan

Modern Governments with serious transformational intent see technology as a strategic asset and not just a tactical tool. Technology alone does not transform government, but government cannot transform to meet 21st Century citizen expectations without it. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) affect every aspect of modern life. An increasing number of individuals and businesses choose to interact with technology, whether this is through mobile phone or a computer connected to Internet. Collaborative and intelligent technologies such as computer networks or its’ newest implementation Internet provides opportunities to achieve greater operational efficiency and to offer improved public services.

e-Government is about to fundamentally change the way government offers services. e-Government solutions have clear and measurable benefits, not only for governments but also for citizens, businesses and government employees, automate the existing processes and integrate channels, processes and services to improve services and make better use of available resources. But automation of the existing processes may have limited effectiveness or may be ineffective if automating processes themselves are not effective. According to Bill Gates, “The first role of any technology is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency”.

E-government is not about technology only. It is about people, right processes, and results – using information and communications technologies to improve the transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness of public institutions. So, Government should observe critical processes for efficiency before looking at automation solutions. Therefore, a new approach may be needed. To achieve success in this initiative, the Government has to use Business Process Management (BPM) technology to optimize and automate the many processes critical to running the Government and at the same time transform appropriate services into an automated Web environment.

This article presents the findings from a study of the role of the BPM in e-Government implementation. Furthermore, it tries to find an answer to the key question: “Why is it important to improve business processes before automating them in e-Government implementation?”

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