THE NEED FOR E-SERVICES
The Case of the e-Citizen
Seppo Sirkemaa
Turku School of Economics, Pori Unit, P.O.Box 170, Pori, Finland
Keywords: e-Services, public sector organizations, citizen, infrastructure.
Abstract: Internet has an important role in our society. It has had a significant impact on the way business can be
done. Here we are looking beyond e-business; today public sector organizations are developing various
electronic services for citizens. In both cases understanding user needs is the basis for successful e-services.
1 INTRODUCTION
Information technology has become more and more
important in our society; it is a driving force in
economic development. Furthermore, information
technology impacts the social and cultural
environment. Internet is this type of phenomenon;
here those who can access internet are in a different
position than people who do not have this
opportunity (Cullen, 2001). Equal access to internet
and services that are made available through it is an
issue all over the globe, and it concerns also citizens
in the industrialized world.
The first applications that were built on the
internet were related to electronic business. Here
efficiency, costs and global marketplace were in a
central role. However, now the emphasis has shifted
to services and added value to the user (Rust and
Kannan, 2003). Following the development in e-
business also public sector is developing services
which take advantage of information technology and
internet. In both cases anytime and anywhere are
important issues, they refer to the possibility to
access information and services instantly,
independently of geographical location. This means
that there is a need for e-services, which are here
understood as services, processes and activities
which can be done with a computer through the
internet.
Today there are all kinds of applications and
services available through the internet. However, a
large number of activities require one to use the
phone or go to an office in order to have the task
done.
This paper aims to answer following questions:
Who is responsible for developing e-services? Who
should take care of the infrastructure? And what is
user’s role here? Our focus is especially on services
provided by public information systems. These
systems are targeted to citizens of a geographically
limited are like a city, municipality or a nation, in
contrast to business services which see consumers or
other business companies as their target users
(Orman, 1989; Sundgren, 2005).
2 INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE
E-SOCIETY
The user has a variety of services available when
connected to the internet. What is required is an
access-point to the network, which can be a hard-
wired connection or wireless hot-spot. Terminal
equipment is not limited to any particular
manufacturer or software provider. Also from
geographical point of view there are no limits:
internet-use may take place at work or at home, or
the user can connect with a mobile device.
The services that are offered through the internet
are here referred to as e-services (Rust and Kannan,
2002; Rust and Kannan, 2003). Most e-services are
related to information: the internet is a way to access
information independently of time and location.
However, there is an increasing demand on
interactive and transaction-enabled services through
the internet (Ancarani, 2005). Commonly, e-services
need to be integrated into processes and systems of
the organization that provides them, especially if the
357
Sirkemaa S. (2007).
THE NEED FOR E-SERVICES - The Case of the e-Citizen.
In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on e-Business, pages 357-359
DOI: 10.5220/0002110503570359
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

services are transaction-related (de Ruyter et al.,
2001).
Application of e-services can be found both in
public sector organizations (e-government) and in
private sector companies (e-business). (CITIZYS
Research Group, 2007). There are numerous
examples on electronic, information technology
powered public sector services already today. The
citizen may use an arbitrary computer connected to
the internet and apply for children's day-care, or
inform the authorities that the address has changed,
for example. These can be done by filling in a form
on-line, or downloading it and printing for manual
processing. Other typical e-services include seeking
information from service providers’ internet-pages
or requesting further information and advice. It is
still clear that many public services are in their early
stages; often they are based on existing ways of
doing things instead of thinking what citizens need
(Howard, 2001). Services need to be integrated
which calls for a total re-planning of services in
order to better meet the needs of the citizens
(Atkinson and Leigh, 2003).
Whereas e-business is concerned there is a vast
amount of different e-commerce sites covering
practically every imaginary field. Travel industry is
a good example of an industry, which uses
information technology extensively. The customer
or the traveller has the possibility to make
reservations, get to know hotels, car-rental services
and more in the travel destination. The internet gives
the traveller services which earlier were possible
only through the travel agency. This gives the
traveller better control on the travelling experience.
The result is a change in the infrastructure of travel
industry; today customers are increasingly making
reservations by themselves. From the service
providers perspective it is critical to have visibility
in the internet; the service should be listed when the
traveller is planning trip and uses search engines like
Google in this. The issue here is that traveller needs
to do the planning; technology just shows different
options (routes, hotels, fares etc.) to choose from. It
is likely that in the future this is not enough, more
advanced services will be developed which help in
travel planning and adjust to changes in schedules,
for example (de Ruyter et al., 2001).
To summarize, today there are many tasks,
activities and services which are available as e-
services. However, there are still several areas where
there is a clear need for e-services. This is the case
especially in non-commercial services which are
provided by government or municipal organizations.
For example, information change between school
and home could benefit from electronic services.
The challenge here is who should develop the
infrastructure that is needed in these services.
2.1 Developing e-Services
It is common that the motive in development of e-
services is to cut costs in operations or increase
quality of service. However, these goals have little
to do with needs of the user. As a result, there is a
need to shift focus to the client, customer or citizen
who is the user of services (Atkinson and Leigh,
2003; Rust and Kannan, 2003). Let us look at e-
services in public sector as an example.
In public services citizen is the user of the
service and the actor whose needs should be
understood. In other words, in real life various
services are being offered, but not all are going to
become very popular. The actual usage of services is
important, not only the amount of different services
or service providers behind them. The perceived
quality of e-services and added value as seen by the
user is in a central role in this setting.
Figure 1: Actors in public information systems (Sundgren,
2005).
There are organizations from private business
and agencies which are involved in offering e-
services. Service providers can be organizations
which are “actual” service providers, or they can be
outside companies which develop, run or maintain
the service in cooperation with the actual service
provider. For example, the programming of the
application could be done by a specialized software
company while the actual service provider
concentrates on what is the content of the service.
Even though there would be several parties involved
ICE-B 2007 - International Conference on e-Business
358

in developing and providing the service one should
be the service provider who is responsible for the
service. This service provider may set rules like
minimum requirements or standards.
In development of e-services there are
differences among organizations in terms of
technical skills, organizational structure and in the
attitude towards innovations. This means that not all
organizations are ready for changes, and the pace of
development differs among organizations (Ancarani,
2005). Thorough planning is therefore needed in
development of more sophisticated e-service
solutions; this is the case especially in public sector
organizations.
3 DISCUSSION
The first wave of e-business was based on selling
commodity goods to a geographically large potential
customer base and reducing costs in the supply
chain. Also the possibility to build a 24/7 service to
the customer was seen as a critical success factor.
However, the network based electronic environment
calls for a more customer-centric approach (Riel et
al., 2001). Self-service combined with the ease in
comparing prices mean that the customer can switch
to another internet-store. In many services customer
turnover is high, and considering the costs of
acquiring new customers keeping the customers
deserves more attention.
The infrastructure and availability of e-services
is heterogeneous. In some fields there are plenty of
services for the user to choose from, and in other
settings electronic approach to doing things is
uncommon. For example, travel planning is one of
the tasks that benefits from electronic reservation
systems and information that is readily available
from the internet. In health care sector electronic
services are not as widely spread as is the case in
travel business.
Most services which are available through the
internet are related to information delivery (Layne
and Lee, 2001). However, e-services which include
online interaction and transaction processing are
scarcer. This is understandable as coding a web page
and publishing information on it is relatively easy.
Instead, interactive and transaction oriented e-
services need to be connected to databases and other
internal information systems. These require
significant amount of planning compared to
development of informative web pages (Howard,
2001; Atkinson and Leigh, 2003).
It seems that understanding user needs is
increasingly important in development of e-services.
Today users of internet-based services want to have
control over the transaction (Meuter et al., 2000).
The user wants to know the status of a packet
delivery or an application form, for example. Also in
public sector the successfulness of e-services
depends on understanding citizens requirements.
Consequently, service and user needs are in a critical
role in development of e-services (Atkinson and
Leigh, 2003; Rust and Kannan, 2003).
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