THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP STRATEGY

IN E-GOVERNMENT ESDLIFE IN HONG KONG

Tak Ming Lam

Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Keywords: Partnership strategy, e-government, ESDlife.

Abstract: Increasingly e-governments are turning to public and private partnerships as an alternative option to fund IT

projects. Also The Hong Kong Government developed ESDlife.com as a one-stop portal to deliver public

and private information and services. The portal’s brand name “ESDLife” best demonstrates the vision to

make “life” simpler and easier for the Hong Kong community. This paper is to discuss whether this business

model would deliver a competitive advantage to customers using the case of “ESDLife. E-government, like

e-commerce, will not be automatically successful by investing resources without clear strategic

understanding of the critical success factors.

1 INTRODUCTION

The ESD Scheme was launched in December 2000

as a flagship e-government project and its portal is

one of the world’s first bilingual (English and

Chinese) one-stop portals providing integrated

electronic public and commercial services. The main

aims of ESD are: to deliver high quality public

services to the community in an innovative manner;

to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of

delivery of public services; and to foster the

development of electronic commerce in Hong Kong.

Providing an open and common information

infrastructure for the delivery of public and

commercial services, the Scheme drives the

development and adoption of e-commerce by the

business sector and the general community.

Users can search for services through three

mega-channels – “People”, “Business” and “City”;

through nine service types “Transport”,

“Citizenship”, “Education”, “Employment”,

“Finance”, “Household”, “Leisure”, “Business” and

“Tourist”; through the list of departments and

agencies providing the services or through

interactive search. Services are available 24 hours a

day and seven days a week. Services can be

accessed via personal computers with Internet

connection; public computer facilities installed in

district offices, community halls, post offices and

public libraries; or smartly designed public kiosks

installed throughout the city in train and subway

stations, shopping centers, supermarkets, cultural

and exhibition centers and Government offices.

2 ESDLIFE BUSINESS MODEL

The private sector operator is responsible for the

development, operation and management of the ESD

information infrastructure. The Government has not

paid for the capital investment nor the recurrent

operational and maintenance cost. It will only start

to pay for each chargeable transaction made through

the system after the number of cumulative

chargeable transactions conducted has reached an

agreed volume. The operator is allowed to make use

of the system to provide advertisements and

revenue-generating private sector e-commerce

services via the same portal web site. This provides

an additional income stream to the operator.

To the public and government, it can embark on such

partnerships for the greater good, especially if the

agency has the mandate to promote ICT adoption to

domain industry partners, through leadership in ICT

exploitation, to raise the overall competitiveness of

industry or community specific services. Also the

public agencies are no longer required to front

substantial capital development and yet co-share in

473

Ming Lam T. (2008).

THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP STRATEGY IN E-GOVERNMENT ESDLIFE IN HONG KONG.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 473-475

DOI: 10.5220/0001911204730475

 SciTePress

e-services revenue collected. In addition if the public

agency is not a dominant player to other parties in

the value chain, then the agency could collaborate

with other agencies so that the government as a

whole becomes a dominant player.

From the private service companies views, we can

see that the motivation lies on the potential

additional profit stream and an opportunity to gain

market share and domain knowledge of the public

agency’s user base. The private sector is able to get

the incentives to create more innovative and value

adding services for the end users. And it has greater

chance to build up goodwill in front of the citizens

and the government so as to keep a long-term

business relationship with the government.

Probably the most important success factor in

implementing e-government in Hong Kong is the

vision of the HKSAR Government. The

e-Government Coordination Office was established

to plan and oversee the e-government policies and

initiatives, including ESDLife project.

3 ADVANTAGE OF THIS MODEL

3.1 Reduce Risk of Government

Under this partnership approach, the business risk to

Government will be kept to the minimum. The

financial charging model also provides an incentive

for the operator to drive the public in accessing

e-government services, continuously to upgrade the

system with the most advanced technologies and to

deliver private sector electronic services

3.2 New Platform for Commercial

Opportunity

More electronic business opportunities are provided

by the government, and it could then enhance the

e-business environment in Hong Kong. The scope of

ESDLife requires the exploitation of new

technologies, and it would then strength the

community for digital exploitation.

3.3 Integration of Public and

Commercial Services in the Same

Portal

This enables the public to enjoy electronic services

in a seamless and convenient manner. By allowing

the ESD information infrastructure to carry

commercial services, the project also promotes the

development of e-commerce in Hong Kong. The

e-government services and the commercial services

can drive the overall adoption of e-commerce in the

business sector and the wider community.

3.4 Quick Receive and Response to

Customer Feedback

Apart from that, the ESD operator has carried out

customer surveys to obtain customer feedback on the

usage of ESD services. Such feedback is also

important to improving the services under the

Scheme.

4 DISADVANTAGE OF THIS

MODEL

4.1 Registration Problem

Although the e-government initiative offered

convenience to the public, there remained some

inconvenience, in particular in relation to those

electronic services that required an electronic

certificate to allow the user to register on-line.

4.2 Third Party Software Needed

In addition to the electronic certificate, users needed

to download and install special software in their

computer. Two programs were required, one for

security issues and another for the use of Chinese

characters.

4.3 Connection Problem

Although ESD was made available in a variety of

ways – in kiosks at around underground train

stations and other public places – the system only

efficiently supported users with broadband Internet

hook-up, which meant that users who were

connected to the Internet through telephone lines

faced long delays in transmission.

4.4 Complexity of Process

For example, renewing a driver’s license through the

Internet required scanning and transmitting an

Identity Card and other documents, a process that

took several minutes and equipments to complete.

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This process was not considered simple, particularly

for non-technical people.

4.5 Privacy and Security Issues

From the citizens’ point of view, the major concern

for them towards the involvement of the commercial

sector in providing e-government services is

infringement of the personal data. It is true that more

use of the personal information means more privacy

concerns. It is possible that in collecting, transferring

and accessing citizens’ data through the ESDLife

systems for registration or transaction, the private

sector may be inappropriate to use and even

disseminate them without citizens’ previous

consents. And lack of adequate control mechanism

in reviewing private institutes would even bring this

problem to a large extent. On the other hand, privacy

will also surface as it is possible for the government

to track online activities like frequently accessed

products, the length of time spent on each page, and

the length of time spent searching. While this

tracking information can be used toward improving

the website and its offerings, the temptation to sell

this information to external parties may also exist

since a close relationship with each other.

5 FURTHER IMPROVEMENT

SUGGESTIONS

To develop a consolidated mix government portal,

and to keep improving and well prepared for the

challenge in future, we proposed the following

suggestions:

Smooth Transformation from Traditional

Processes to Modern Technology. Despite that the

Scheme has offered a substantially more efficient

and effective alternative means of service delivery, it

is not a easy task to use the Scheme to replace the

existing forms of providing services to the public

over the counter or over the phone.

Privacy Enhancement. To alleviate the concern for

the customers over the public and private sector

collaboration in delivering government services, a

clear and transparent guideline should be drawn to

illustrate the liabilities and obligations between both

parties.

Digital Signature Fee. Since digital signature is one

of the methods used to provide data integrity, most

of transactions occurring in the ESDLife need to

adopt the digital signature technology to verify the

users. However, in most of the situations, citizens

are needed to charge $50 per year for the use of the

digital signature.

User Interface. Firstly, ESDLife system should

always inform the users what is going on. It is very

important in payment status. Secondly, It is

important to lead users to have more control and

freedom in using the system.

REFERENCES

Apple Computer (1987). Human Interface Guidelines: The

Apple Desktop Interface, Addison-Wesley.

Poon, S. and Huang X., (2002) Success at E-Governing: A

Case study of ESDLife in Hong Kong. Electronics

Markets 12(4), 270-280

ESDLife Launches Electronic Service Delivery,Hutchison

Global Crossing (2000) http://www.hgc.com.hk/eng/

aboutus_latestnews_11dec00.html

ESD Services limited www.esdlife.com

Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau,

Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative

Region, August 2001. “Hong Kong Report on Portals”

Jessie Ting, Deputy Secretary of Information Technology

and Broadcasting, Government of the Hong Kong

Special Administrative Region, December 10, 1999.

“Impact of ESD on e-Commerce Development in

Hong Kong”

“StockHolm Challenge: Hong Kong – Electronic Service

Delivery (ESD) Scheme (“ESDlife”) http://

www.stockholmchallenge.se/projectdata.asp?id=1&pr

ojectid=2892

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