BAG in the News

23rd November 2007

Report on Customer-Service practices of Govt's around the World

Dinner guests: Some of the guests at the organised dinner for Jon W Brakebill, global programme director for Accenture's Public Service Customer Relationship Management Practice last night. Picture: HM Zailaney

INFOCOMM Federation Brunei (IFB) organised a dinner for Jon W Brakebill, global programme director for Accenture's Public Service Customer Relationship Management (CR M) Practice at the I-Lotus restaurant last night.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.

Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high performance businesses and governments.

With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilise the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance.

With approximately 170,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$19.70 billion ($28.56 billion) for the latest fiscal year, which ended August 31, 2007.

At the event, Jon also made a brief presentation on the report which titled "Leadership in Customer Service: Delivering on the Promise".

The report is the eighth in a series of annual reports from Accenture that examine the customer-service challenges, maturity and practices of governments around the world.

According to Jon, this year's report marks the return to a ranking of 22 governments based on an assessment of their customer-service programmes, but with an important enhancement.

The rankings incorporate direct citizen feedback to assess more accurately the quality of government service delivery, reflecting input on criteria such as the user-friendliness of customer-service channels, the breadth and depth of online services accessed by citizens, and overall citizen satisfaction ratings.

The countries included in the report were Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

While conducting the report, Accenture surveyed a total of 9,000 citizen along with 52 government executives in 17 countries in order to understand their visions for the future, their current priorities and their lessons learned from past experiences.

In overall ranking, Singapore was ranked number one among the 21 countries where the citizens' opinions gave substantial weight in this year's evaluation process.

Jon pointed out the four major points in relation with the topic "Delivering on the Promise" which are know-the- customer needs, make the connections, align your people and do not do it alone. These are essentials in improving customer relationship between the citizens and the government.

Those in attendance included Hj Mahmud Hj Mohd Daud, Deputy Permanent Secretary of Prime Minister's Office, Pg Hj Mohammad Pg Hj Kamaluddin, Chairman of IFB and also CEO of Alif Technologies.

Also present were BAG Networks CEO David Abberton and Secretary for IFB along with Sheikh Abas Sheikh Mohammad, CEO of Syabas Technologies and also Deputy Chairman of IFB (Industry) and Abd Ghani Pg Hj Metusin, Deputy Chairman of IFB (Government chapter).

Hamidon Latip of Syabas Technologies questioned Jon on the benefits of implementing the four points and the strategies used by other Asian countries such as Brunei's closest neighbour Singapore.

"Culture is a main influence on implementing these strategies especially those that are government driven countries," Jon replied. Jon added that not all countries are able to adapt to these strategies use by other countries but infact Brunei can learn and share ideas with those countries involved.

The closing of the ceremony ended with kind words from David Abberton, who encouraged more of the community to attend meetings held by IFB to create more public awareness in Brunei.

Courtesy of The Brunei Times