E-services lead the Kingdom toward sustainable future
Ali Bin Saleh Al-Soma, director general of the e-government program (Yesser), has said that the biggest mistake an e-services provider can make is to allow technological capabilities alone to determine the design and usability of their online services. Al-Soma was speaking at the Fourth Annual Kingdom e-Government Summit here yesterday.
“Enterprise architecture and virtualization are the main focus of our second national action plan. These will play a key role and assist government authorities in e-transformation,” he said.
He added, “A citizen-centric e-government plan is crucial to ensure the high usage of e-services by the community, but will lead the Kingdom toward a smarter and more sustainable future in terms of accessibility of government services, efficiency and cost effectiveness.”
Yesser, the Kingdom’s e-government program, is prioritizing enduser experience to expedite implementation. Anticipating the enormous benefits of e-government concepts to the national economy, the government attaches great importance to e-government transformation.
The major objectives of the Yesser include raising the public sector’s productivity and efficiency, providing better and more easy-to-use services for individuals and business customers, increasing return on investment (ROI) and providing accurate information in a timely manner.
Saleh said, “Seven years ago, we developed our first e-service and today, the department dealing with zakat and income tax receives more than 99 percent of payments through SADAD, which amount to $ 6.13 billion.”
Jarallah Al-Ghamdi, vice minister of education, said, “End-user experience is misunderstood at times as only improving graphical interface. In reality, the end-user experience means response time is satisfactory, downtime is minimal and correction during down time is fast.”
Amer Zein El-Abdin, vice president of business development at WITS, said, “A lot of organizations in the Kingdom are utilizing Twitter to get feedback, which works well for a Twitter-active country. Sentimental analysis is a little tricky to implement but this is something that will inevitably have to be brought into all organizations in the near future.”
A number of panelists also took part in the discussion. These include Anas Al-Solai, deputy director of ICT for Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, and Saleh Al Awaji, deputy director-general of the department dealing with zakat and income tax.