Page 19 - Enhancing innovation and participation in smart sustainable cities

United for Smart Sustainable Cities
Enhancing Innovation and Participation

Hiding the operational complexity of ESS from customers: ESS delivery is a fairly complex operation; involving
complicated infrastructure management processes, intricate service implementations and customer management
processes, as briefly outlined in this document. It is important to hide this complexity from customers and provide
simple, easy-to-use, cloud-based web applications and services, with timely and responsive customer support in
a seamless manner. This approach has contributed to the high adoption of ESS by customers. Customers are
intentionally kept at the user level. They are engaged to gather their ESS requirements, but are kept detached
from all the technical intricacies and details of implementing and delivering services. This has helped customers
to save time and money and has also contributed to increasing their loyalty.

Private sector partnerships: ESS require various disparate skills and competences. It was decided early on to
acquire and develop some of these skills internally. Subsequently, several of these requisite skills and competences
were acquired through partnerships established over time. In some cases, strategic outsourcing was utilized to
complement the existing skills. ICT partnerships were also established with various providers of ICT services and
equipment. Without these partnerships, operational challenges and skills issues might have potentially
undermined the success of ESS.

2.3 Results

Benefits and the impact
The benefits and the impact of whole-of-the-government approach implemented through ESS can be summarized
as follows:
ƒ One-stop-shop for public services: ESS included several one-stop-shop services for the public and
businesses. Examples include the following:
(i) Dubai Government main portal and DubaiNow mobile app for government services-related
information and transactions;
(ii) eSupply, a single electronic procurement portal (esupply.dubai.gov.ae) whereby government
entities post their business opportunities for suppliers;
(iii) eParticipation services handle electronic suggestions, electronic complaints and electronic surveys
thereby greatly reducing the barriers for the public’s engagement in policy making.
ƒ Core business focus for Government entities: ESS implementations have clearly delineated the
responsibilities and the accountabilities among Dubai Government entities. Smart Dubai Government
has undertaken the responsibility of implementing, delivering and supporting the ESS by engaging with
customers. Hence, Dubai Government entities participated heavily in defining the requirements for ESS
and also utilizing them in a shared manner with other government entities to run their internal back-
office processes, whereas Smart Dubai Government took the ownership of availing them as ICT-based
shared services. This has allowed Dubai Government entities to focus on their core business of providing
services to individuals and businesses in Dubai in line with their mandates and missions. ESS have relieved
government entities from diverting their attention to non-core areas such as administrative (or support)
processes related to internal administration. This is one of the main reasons why Dubai Government
entities have electronically enabled their core public services in an accelerated manner.
ƒ Operational efficiencies through cost savings: In June 2016, the Smart Dubai Government establishment
published a report, quantifying the economic impact of its shared services to the Dubai Government.
Smart Dubai Government announced AED 4.3 billion (USD 1.2 billion) in total savings for the Dubai
1
Government from 2003-2015. The results were part of a comprehensive, year-long study conducted by
an international, third-party consultancy, to uncover the impacts and benefits of utilizing ESS. The results
of this report give further evidence of Smart Dubai Government’s ongoing commitment to ensuring
efficiency, in line with its mandate to deliver world-class smart services and infrastructure through the
technology arm of the Smart Dubai Office. The report found that the Government of Dubai has saved 5.6
dollars for every 1 dollar spent by Smart Dubai Government since its inception. The report identified that
the Government of Dubai had managed to acquire annual (average) savings of AED 358 million (USD 97.4
million) for over 12 years from ESS. In 2015, Smart Dubai Government saved an average of AED 35.5

1 Smart Dubai Government Lean Administration Support Services Project 2016 conducted by IBM

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