The article addresses the current trends that are being applied in Mexico for the development of e-government or e-government initiatives. The Mexican government, at the federal, state or municipal level, is making significant efforts to integrate technology solutions that help convert its traditional functions towards managing a digital government.
Currently, countries and their governments, in all their instances, face very important challenges for the development of their economy, society, international relations, security, job creation and well-being for their communities; Likewise, the population has changed, has become more demanding and requires better government services, the use of the Internet, the e-commerce environment and e-business have spread among the population, changing the mindset and expectations of citizens.
The current globalized environment has also reached governments, this is demonstrated in the concern for trade relations and international treaties, also within the national environment through the convergence of fractions of society and governments towards the best organization and transparency of its operations.
The economic and social justice backwardness of Latin American countries, especially Mexico, requires better solutions; Information technology is a means for governments to achieve the goals of organizing their material, financial, and human resources, to continue in search of a better distribution of wealth and justice, aspects that are reasons for be from federal, state and municipal governments.
What is e-government?
E-government (e-government) is a global technology trend to support and facilitate government operations with the use of information technology. New advances in e-business such as Enterprise Resource planning (ERP) systems, Customer relationship Management (CRM) systems, Datawarehouse (DWH), e-commerce, business to business (b2b), business to customer (b2c), business networking, or supply chain management are technologies that can support a government to achieve its goals as an organization.
The parameters to measure a government are innumerable, without a doubt the economic administration, the procurement of justice, the advances in education and health systems, as well as the response to social demands are important points of a public administration; therefore, these will be the points where governments should start implementing technology-based solutions.
In sum, then, the use of information technologies by government agencies to transform their operations, with the aim of improving their effectiveness, efficiency and quality of service. The main idea is to improve the value and progress that governments represent towards society. With this, the e-government is able to offer better services to the society that has democratically elected them, to improve the interactions of citizens with the government, the government with itself and between different instances. Thus, e-government is the transformation from a traditional government to an electronic government.
Reasons to implement e-government
Currently democratic government is considered the best form of government, citizens freely and responsibly choose who will be their rulers, in such a way that the elected government is due to its citizens and has the responsibility to offer clear accounts to those who have chosen him.
There are typical vices and problems of governments, associated with them due to the great concentration of operations, power and money that a government represents. As an example are bureaucracy and corruption. Both problems appear in all the governments of the world, nevertheless the inherent backwardness to the third world causes that these two problems have impressive magnitudes in Mexico and Latin America.
How can technology help governments face these two great vices? Basically, information technology allows operations to be more transparent and direct with the citizen. The new IT trends are associated with the management of new applications, better equipment, the use of telecommunications, and something fundamental: the reengineering of its processes. Just as e-business came to evolve business, e-government has begun to evolve into the world's oldest organization, governments.
Let's compare the reasons why a government worries about establishing electronic management, with the reasons why a company worries about achieving e-business, we can see that:
• The government can achieve optimization of its internal operations and resource management, in the same way that businesses improve and achieve control of their material, economic and human resources.
• Governments can optimize their processes in such a way that interactions with the population comply with parameters of quality, efficiency and effectiveness; just as companies optimize their operations to reach more customers and new markets.
• In the same way that organizations care about knowing who their clients are, so the government has the possibility and the responsibility of knowing and identifying who their citizens are and what they want.
• Governments can implement links and cooperation between the different instances, secretaries, offices, municipalities, and states; just as companies implement and strengthen their ties with suppliers and distributors by forming business networks and strategic collaboration alliances.
However, a government cannot be managed as a company, the fundamental difference lies in the ends that it is intended to achieve. The objectives of a company to establish an e-business are basically economic: increasing sales, expanding its markets, attracting and keeping new customers. However, for governments, the challenge is even greater, given that they must translate their efforts into technology into better public administration with economic results and mainly with social results, leading to the progress of the country, city or state, and equality of opportunities. for society, in order to facilitate the lives of its citizens and the public benefit.The reasons for the implementation of e-government initiatives generally refer to the improvement of the services that the government provides to its citizens. This can be dramatically improved with information technology services.
Components of an e-government
The applications directed towards e-government are very varied, the area of action is very wide as well as government actions, almost all government processes can be improved through technology, here only a sample of possible applications.
Public administration: ERP systems are the electronic column of an organization that seeks to improve its internal administration processes. The ERP offers the organization the integration of its main functions, they are modular systems, which reorganize and integrate the information from its operation so that the information flows within the organization with speed and accuracy, allowing planning and better managing your resources. Undoubtedly, one of the main concerns of government and society is the best public administration of government resources; establishing an ERP within these organizations allows the integration of operational processes. An ERP offers the following modules: Accounting and Finance, Accounts Payable, Purchases, Human Resources and Payroll,among others. With this, the internal operation efficiency of the government is achieved, a point that requires the redefinition of its internal processes, and the transformation of the bureaucracy towards an efficient and professional team directed towards the public career service.
Tax collection: Tax collection systems are an important point to automate, allowing a better flow of income and ease of payment for the taxpayer. The main advantages that are applied to this type of system are the transparency of the transactions, thus avoiding the corruption that could occur in the collection offices, as well as the ease of carrying out operations, thereby avoiding bureaucracy, the practice of managers (commonly known as coyotaje and bites to streamline procedures), as well as long waiting lines for compliance with tax obligations. When these systems are integrated with an ERP system,You can see the income from the collection of taxes reflected as the accounts receivable from the organization and thus integrate these into the financial system.
Law enforcement: Public insecurity, is a very sensitive issue in Mexico, it is perhaps the social branch in which more has been invested in recent years, either for the purchase of better equipment, patrols, or the professionalization of the police. Technology in this area has ample possibilities to offer, currently there are applications for law enforcement, such as emergency call attention systems, coordination of rescue teams, police, traffic and firefighters, or fingerprint recognition systems for tracking suspects.
Citizen service: There are several processes facing the taxpayer that can be benefited with e-government technologies. The objective to fulfill for these applications is to simplify the administrative procedures that are commonly associated with long lines, bureaucracy, and corruption, such as the granting of credits, scholarships, applications from citizens.
Citizen satisfaction: The applications dedicated to measuring the satisfaction of citizens with the measures taken by the government, allow it to make decisions based on the needs of the majority. Applications of this type allow statistical analysis of government actions, the popularity of the measures they have taken and prior consultation of needs and trends. It is the government's responsibility to know who its citizens are and what they think of the government's efforts to decide their actions on the basis of justice for the population.
What is being done in Mexico for the transformation towards an electronic government?
The history of e-government in Mexico and Latin America, are the initiatives that are being carried out in the United States and Europe, e-Europe is an important reference for programs like e-Mexico, which is an effort led by the federal government for the coordination of its secretaries and for the coordination of state and municipal governments.
For reference you can consult:
• Egov https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/e-gov Provides updated information on e-government initiatives of the United States federal government.
• E-europe http://www.europa.eu.int where you can check the latest news and initiatives regarding e-government in Europe.
The federal government in Mexico has made significant progress towards the modernization of its secretaries, as well as efforts to implement and coordinate technology solutions among government agencies. Examples of this we can see in:
• The presidency portal http://www.mexico.gob.mx/ from where news and progress are published, as well as access to the portals of the different government secretaries.
• Compra-net, http://www.compranet.gob.mx/ which is the electronic system of government procurement, where transparency of government purchases is intended, companies that provide goods and services can participate in the tenders of the federal government.
• Declara-net, https://declaranet.gob.mx/ an online application dedicated to taxpayers of the treasury, so that both individuals and companies can calculate and pay their income taxes.
• Infonavit, www.infonavit.gob.mx in its portal, in addition to information, offers various online services to workers who are listed on social security. With this, the institution has improved its processes, for example, consulting the points to obtain housing loans, facilitating the request of the same
The state governments in Mexico have been moving towards e-government, many of them have started by establishing their backbone first, implementing ERP solutions for the best control of their resources, as well as the states have published their Internet sites, giving thus the first step for its transformation vis-à-vis its citizens. Its sites integrate local news, guides for government procedures, and there are some where you can even pay taxes, consult data, receive citizen attention, write your complaints, receive assistance and other services.
The current tendencies of the public administration are towards federalism, where the municipality stops being a small entity receiving federal or state policies without decision-making power, resources and possibility of execution. Federalism implies strengthening the municipality to be an executor of its own development policies and plans, providing it with sufficient resources and facilitating its own capture of income for the benefit of the community. In order to achieve a federalism scheme, municipalities must be more efficient in the administration of their public resources and in the interaction with their citizens.
Some interesting sites are:
• Government of the State of Querétaro: http://www.queretaro.gob.mx/ which even has RecaudaNet where the taxpayer can securely and personally pay their tenure taxes.
• Government of the State of Chihuahua: http://www.chihuahua.gob.mx/ that allows the payment and consultation of vehicle debts, you can request civil registry acts, consult the public registry of property among other services.
• Government of the State of Tabasco: http://www.tabasco.gob.mx/ that also offers citizen services and guides for the execution of procedures.
• Government of the Municipality of Monterrey http://portal.monterrey.gob.mx/ where the city council procures services for citizens such as debit consultation, handling of procedures, news, among others.
Conclusions
The most important challenges associated with e-government, is resistance to change, both of the rulers, government workers, unions, and the general population. Projects to establish solutions of this type must be carefully analyzed in order to identify and resolve the needs of public administration in the best possible way.
Undoubtedly, the basis of the technological development of an organization that is heading towards e-government or e-business is the establishment of an ERP system, which acts as the backbone of the IT solution to be applied. ERP allows the integration of the organization's operational processes. E-government in this sense means transforming government from its structure, processes, policies and traditional strategies towards a vision that makes it take effective actions in the current environment. This set of strategies, technology and processes manages to transform government towards electronic management. The technological part must offer an open and flexible architecture that can solve future problems and allow the integration of other solutions.
When we talk about technology projects of this importance, the coordination and communication of the work team is essential, the concept must be clearly defined for those who promote the project, in this case the government officials and secretaries, as well as for those who will execute the operation, to thus transmitting it to its end users and to the general public.
A change in process or technology must be stated in clear terms towards the strategy that is proposed as a government and thus be able to communicate it effectively to those directly and indirectly affected, in order to achieve minimum resistance, understanding that the change impacts the organization as a whole. The aim is that the project means more than installing a technological solution, in order to translate it into a benefit for society
The results of e-government initiatives must be reflected in the good of the community, it must represent a new experience of the citizen, recreate relations with the government, traditionally this is an unsuccessful experience, either due to the failures of the administration public or by the very nature of the relationship, such as the payment of taxes, where the taxpayer does not receive a direct and tangible benefit. Citizens increasingly turn to online government services, they begin to have confidence in them as the government offers security and confidentiality in their transactions. It is important to demonstrate change through transparency and efficiency in processes that are usually bureaucratic and with facilities for corruption.
The government has the social responsibility for the administration of public resources, the investment in these projects must be carefully studied as well as the selected solutions, since the return on investment in these technologies will be measured in both its financial results and its social results..
