Quatre E-Commerce World

Electronic Government, almost everyone in this modern era heard of it. But, how many of us has take advantage of it in our daily hassle life? From what i know, not much people uses it even though they are really busy with their daily work chores. They would rather take their time to go for the offline alternative.

How is it implementing in Malaysia? Before discussing the implementation, here is a little short and brief introduction. E-Government, in short, was initiated with the introduction of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996. It was then launched in 1997 to bring the country into the informative age with the revolution of technology.

Implementation

The service started with the intention to transform its operations, modernizing and enhancing its service delivery. E-Government seeks to enhance the convenience, accessibility and quality of interaction with the public and businesses at large. Its vision is working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all citizens. It also strive to be effective and efficient in delivering services and be responsive to citizens’ needs.

E-Government is categorized as one of the Flagship Applications introduced in MSC. 7 pilot projects of the E-Government Flagship Application are as follows:

• - Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
• - HRM Information System (HRMIS)
• - Generic Office Environment (GOE)
• - E-Procurement (http://www.eperolehan.gov.my/)
• - E-Services
• - E-Labor Exchanges (ELX) (http://www.elx.gov.my/)
• - E-Syariah (http://www.esyariah.gov.my/)

The Objective of these flagship applications is to jump start and accelerate the growth of the newly developed plan.

According to a study, it said that the first trend of the e-Government advances has made an impact in the early stage of the implementation. Second trend showed in the emergence of the E-Government services are the effort in making operations more cost effective. Thirdly, promoting the e-Government services had become a main priority. They strive to increase the usage by the citizens after some studies found out that citizens rarely take advantage of the e-Government services. Fourth trend appears to be the challenges in integrating the e-Government services as they grow. Lastly, the trend also showed a personalization in the services provided, such as providing citizens with relevant services information quicker and more cost effectively.

Adoption Strategies

Studies addressed that the citizen adoption of e-government services suggest that trust and security (Otto, 2003) and transparency (Marche and McNiven, 2003) are the major issues for e-government adoption. Citizens’ trust towards the service for being effective and efficient will encourage the citizen to take the initiative to use the online services. Privacy policies and security should be guaranteed to ease the insecure feeling of the users.

Given that e-Government website is both an IT and a channel through which citizens and government interacts, technology-based knowledge is crucial. Having citizens who are not knowledgeable with computer, it will be impossible for them to take advantage of the services. Besides that, technical is also an issue (Cottam et al, 2004; George, 2004). User friendly is important. Websites provided must be easy to be used for easy understanding on the procedures needed.

It is believed that trust, social influence, and website ease-of-use impact perceived usefulness of the interface, combined with social influence, predict the intended use of e-Government. Therefore, attention should be given to the demand or citizen’s perspective for good feedback and adoption of the e-Government services.

Related useful link:

> MyEG Services Berhad