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One-window citizen interaction UC enables officials to cut time-to-action by leveraging multiple communication windows running in the backend
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ith ambitious plans for citizen services delivery and common service centres chalked up, the priority for government departments is to streamline communications and enable collaboration. Embracing new technology will be the way forward to overcome the challenges that plague government departments today.
Status quo at government offices Video and voice communication channels are disparate in most government departments. Even within the voice channel, a department secretary for example has different phones for interacting with different sets of people—an internal phone for interacting
with ministerial colleagues, a hotline to stay in touch with the minister and a separate phone for communicating with the external agencies. One has to use different devices for video conferencing. Consequently, there is a lot of confusion and decreased productivity of senior bureaucrats, as they have to move around to attend voice or video calls. This in turn results in delayed or sub optimal delivery of citizen services. There are other fallouts as well. While delays can cause extra pressure on the state machinery and dissatisfaction among citizens, they can also lead to cost escalation. Slow dissemination of information always leads to slower implementation of a project, which in turn invariably results in
The UC way to connectedness and collaboration There are a broad range of clients, applications and devices: • Unified voice and messaging solutions—voice, e-mail and fax message accesses from a single interface. • Integrated video, audio, document and file sharing services with WebEx, Cisco Unified Meeting Place and Cisco Telepresence • Integrated workflow applications and a virtual contact center through the Contact Center Solution
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substantial costs for the various departments and agencies. During an emergency, government departments need to coordinate and collaborate with multiple departments. Both voice calls as well as video calls are needed for faster dissemination of information and speedier response. Calls have to be routed to the right decision maker for advice and suggestions and once a decision is taken, it also needs to be conveyed to the relevant authorities for implementation. A reverse loop is essential for feedback and corrective action. Seamlessness in communication and collaboration will enable governments to enhance quality of citizen service delivery all through the year and respond quicker
during an emergency.
Connect, communicate and collaborate India being a large country, the state as well as central government departments have offices in geographically spread out locations and there is a need for better coordination among departments. The government departments also need to collaborate with multiple agencies. These factors justify the need for collaborative tools such as unified communication (UC) that help in reducing
Deployments of UC Indian Air Force has deployed unified communications across 65 locations for 65,000 users North Wales Police has adopted unified video conferencing and unified messaging solution on smart phones, enabling more ‘on-the-street’ time Government of Australia has installed Cisco TelePresence in 20 locations across the country for travel cost reduction and increased productivity US Consulates have been actively using Cisco TelePresence
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During emergencies, departments need to coordinate through multiple channels like voice and video, which causes delays
UC breaks the silo structures and converges all communication on a single device at the touch of a button
their own enquiry numbers and call center set ups. With government-to-citizen (G2C) applications being accessed through citizen service centres (CSC), state governments can now look forward to centralise their enquiry toll-free numbers through virtual contact center solutions. This single-window interaction point between the government and citizens will lead to citizens’ delight.
communication costs, increasing employee productivity in government departments and driving operational efficiencies across departments. These new communication solutions can also help in meeting service level agreements (SLAs) with citizens, inter and intra department coordination, and inter office coordination.
The route to success
Benefits of unified communications With UC, government departments can use one solution instead of multiple devices to cater to their entire communication requirements. UC also offers the choice on how software applications can be deployed—onsite hosted or on-demand. Application deployment is based on needs at hand, and often results in the adoption of hybrid deployment models that draw on the speed,
ubiquity, and flexibility of cloud computing. Investing in unified communications also helps in consolidating and creating centralised IT infrastructure and resources. Besides these, the technology also enables the government departments to create environmentally sustainable workspaces by allowing officials to collaborate online, thereby reducing travel expenses and carbon footprint.
Opportunities galore For streamlining processes, reducing complexity and enabling better collaboration, state governments have opted for IP telephony solutions with state wide area networks (SWAN) wherein one IP phone is installed in each office. However, there is a need for increasing its penetration within offices for better coordination. Also, all departments in the state government have
In order to make deployments of unified communications successful, the authorities need to do detailed planning, taking into account all likely scenarios within their departments, laying out the procedures and communicating to all government agencies. A structured directory listing of all relevant authorities is mandatory and it needs to be updated regularly. The room of innovation in communications is large, and government departments will benefit the most from innovation. Increase in productivity and response time will be beneficial, both in day-to-day affairs and in emergency responses.
July 2010 / www.egovonline.net / egov
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