Research Findings in the Domain of Business Platform Models: Defining the Practices to Design a Perfect Government Business Platform Model

1.1 Introduction

In this section an answer is provided to research question 1: What are some of the best practices for defining a Government Business Platform model for citizen services?

Based on research, practices were defined that guide governments to the establishment of a successful platform model for “Opening Services”. Next to the practices, the associated governance mechanisms were also defined to make sure the platform model is well management and delivers upon the defined vision.

1.2 Requirements for defining practices

Before we defined the practices, a better understanding was needed what the practices and governance mechanisms need to conform to. In other words, practices to achieve what purpose?

The example found in the Australian Government (Australian Digital Transformation Agency, 2019) served as guidance. Australia is a pioneer in embracing the business platform model for its citizen services. For a government platform model to be successful, they recommended:

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  To determine upfront what value the platform model will bring to all stakeholders in optimizing citizen services – tangible or intangible.

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  To evaluate the existence of digital leadership, governance, and accountabilities to set the vision and turn this into an executable strategy.

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  To measure how trust and confidence was enabled by the government to allow all stakeholders to function safely within an “Opening Services” oriented model.

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  To measure how the government organization transformed their culture, skills, and capabilities to apply a platform model.

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  To measure how new technology and data were used to build the platform model, connect stakeholders, and allow the unification of government services towards the platform.

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  To address risk and legislative barriers in dealing with the ecosystem and allowing the government organization to transfer the responsibility of the service execution to the ecosystem.

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  To foster collaboration and innovation across government and beyond by redesigning the government services to become self-service, proactive, and personalized on the platform.

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  To measure how the governance mechanisms were put in place to ensure the platform model is managed and controlled in the best possible way.

Next to these recommendations, an own list of characteristics was added. The practices must be useful, effective, repeatable, and deliver consistent experience when applied to case organizations. This implies:

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  Useful – the defined practices must be able to represent a 360° view of the approach the organization has taken to design, build and/or roll out their respective platform model. The practices must help identifying where actions or corrections were needed.

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  Effective – the defined practices and governance mechanisms suggested must allow to verify if an effective platform organization was established.

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  Repeatable – the practices must be useable in the same way to evaluate different government organizations, i.e., they do not require tweaking or special preparation.

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  Consistent – the practices must remain stable when used in different government organizations, the results must be comparable without effort.

These requirements were stated to make sure the practices are not theoretical but can be used in case organisations to make a proper judgement where the organisation stands and / or wants to evolve to.