First of all, the question arises whether a government has a business model, because in theory, a business model is the way an organization/company derives value and creates value for itself and for others. On the one hand, a government is there to guide transaction occurring in society and also implement/enforce rules. On the other hand, using this definition, I do think it is fair to state that a government and its institutions have some kind of business model. But, their goals are different than those of a revenue-driven company. As stated by the OECD, governments end goal is to eventually create value for citizens of that town, city or country and all their actions need to be for the “greater good.” Recent years have shown how governments have started focusing on integrating and implementing digital technologies in their day to day processes to increase efficiency. So far, the government has passed through three phases: analogue government, e-government and digital government. E-government falls directly in line with digitization by making service online and using information and communication technologies (OECD, 2019). Whereas the digital government takes it a step further and has begun using big data to improve certain decisions being made and also to transform the design and implementation process of public policies and services (OECD, 2019).
Their next innovation is looking at AI. A couple of guidelines have been set up to make sure that the adoption and implementation of AI will not become a cost to society but rather a benefit. What surprised me, and I know it shouldn’t have, is that the use of AI and benefits are almost exactly the same to those experienced by the firm. The systems should achieve efficiency, enable interoperability and also enhance decision making due to all the data being used. The steps taken to achieve this are also almost exactly the same: government acting as a platform, the public sector generating data, enhancing digital capability and literacy and setting up a strong technology with complementary infrastructure (OECD, 2019). I think this is interesting to see how digital business models and overall digital technologies are making their way into various sectors that also have aim to serve different end-goals through implementing these.
and VR, governmental institutions are able to perform simulations and scenarios enabling training for certain scenarios (Lcollen, 2020). Such simulations are also the reason governments can potentially cut down on costs as they no longer have to physically move somewhere to conduct a training but can conduct it online. I wonder whether this shift will also impact national armies and their trainings or whether national security groups will also experience a dramatic shift in the way they learn.
Bibliography:
Lcollen. (2020, October 21). Learning from the government’s successful use of emerging technologies. Partnership for Public Service. Retrieved October 18, 2022, from https://ourpublicservice.org/blog/learning-from-the-governments-successful-use-of-emerging-technologies/
Ubaldi, B., Le Fevre, E. M., Petrucci, E., & Marchionni, P. (2019). State of the art in the use of emerging technologies in the public sector. OECD Working Papers on Public Governance. https://doi.org/10.1787/932780bc-en
Interesting blog! I can see that a lot of value can be added for governments and citizens if governments will decide to use digital business models. During the pandemic China introduced a digital vaccine passport, which helped to contain the outbreak of the corona virus. However a lot of citizens dont trust their government. Do you think that this lack of trust will form a barrier in the transformation to a digital business model?