Our experience

Setting the scene

Ninety-nine percent of Estonia’s public services are available online. The digital society started investing in IT solutions, beginning with e-Governance, in 1997. Today, citizens can vote online, file their taxes in just 3-5 minutes and the efficiency of security services has increased. 

In 2014, Estonia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications recognised a gap in their services. With no standardized process for developing new e-services, citizens were met with varying qualities of service and redundant, complicated business processes. 

How we helped

PwC and partner Trinidad Consulting worked with Estonia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications to implement a proof-of-concept pilot project. The project was two-fold: to increase the quality of business processes of the existing services and to plan efficient and user-friendly new services. The Ministry’s priority was to train the officials in charge of the e-services development on service design and IT analysis, helping the State to become a better planner, smarter customer and dependable partner for consultants and IT developers. 

Using an As Is analysis approach, PwC mapped and analysed the business processes of 20 existing e-services from nine public sector institutions. During this stage, Chief Digital Officer Janek Rozov said, “it has become evident that there is no fixed role within institutions that would have the responsibility to administer information about services”. 

Recognising the areas for improvement, new e-services were introduced. The implementation of the new user-centered programs focused on training service owners to evaluate, improve and create more efficient e-services. Participants were trained in modern and freeware tools and methodologies for designing future services. 

Based on their experience, Estonia can offer advice to other governments and institutions. “The coordination role in the development of user friendly services has to be established centrally. Before IT development, an As Is and To Be analysis of the business processes and services has to be done. Supporting regulation has to be in place,” said Mr. Rozov.  

Impact and potential

The project emphasised the need for standardised processes in order to improve efficiency. As a result, services were merged and processes for businesses were streamlined. For example, more than 3,000 companies can now file their data in their company portal, instead of separately inputting it into a government information system. And a building permit can now be obtained via one unique process, as opposed to the former five services. 

The project brought awareness of the similarities across the sector, and allows for more collaboration and less redundancy. There was a presumption that most e-service authorities were experienced in service design and development, but the project proved otherwise. 

Citizens and administration services both benefited from this project. The new implementations save time, money and complication.