Government virtual service networks

Governments and their partners have developed sophisticated networks of services to reach their common customers. Those networks developed to reach the citizen in the physical world should be extended to reach citizens in the virtual world. Virtual networks should stretch from government agencies to public portals, through public or private service providers and fully leveraging the Internet as a feature rich, low cost, ubiquitous, and accessible service infrastructure. A few governments have been testing elements of this model already. However, many of them are still struggling with business and policy issues, which do not allow full development of these partnership dynamics. This paper discusses some business and technical features of virtual service networks: role of intermediaries and service channel providers, partnership non-exclusivity, quality of service based partnership agreements, end-to-end citizen relationship management, and importance of open Internet standards adoption.