Gulf region embraces Citizen Relationship Management, says LINK Development

"CiRM, or Citizen Relationship Management, has captured the interest of GCC Governments on both the federal and local levels across the region," says Sherif Dahan, GCC Territory Manager for LINKdotNET.

LINKdotNET is the parent company for software development house LINK Development, which has been operating in the Gulf for the past decade.

"Every government in the Gulf is either planning or implementing some form of CiRM strategy, with applications from healthcare and transportation to finance and education,"

he continues.

"This is part of an overall digital government initiative and a solution to meet higher demand for public services from rapidly growing populations in the region."

CiRM is the public sector's adaptation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which involves the automation of organisations' sales, marketing and customer service data and processes to enhance, service, overall efficiency and customer satisfaction.

While CRM has been applied in private enterprises for years, it has only recently captured the interest of the public sector, and done so substantially. These efforts stem from the keenness of governments to enhance the quality and delivery of public services. Feedback mechanisms, enabling suggestions and complaints, are a particular area of focus within CiRM adoption in the region because they help the government sector to review performance and address issues.

Furthermore, governments in the region have recognized CiRM's value in streamlining public services to meet the demand of rapidly growing populations. The GCC region has one of the highest population growth rates in the world, resulting from high birth rates amongst national populations and a continuous influx of migrant workers. With the current GCC population set to increase by 40% by 2015, the strain on public services can be considerable. By automating and integrating processes and data, CiRM can bring a much higher level of efficiency to the public sector and alleviate pressure on resources.
CEO of LINK Development, Hanan Abdel Meguid, explains that the CiRM evolution echoes the trend of many private sector practices that are slowly making their way into government.

"Governments have been taking tips from the private sector and learning how they are effectively managing long-term relationships with customers, ensuring customer satisfaction and growing the business.

"Ironically, CiRM adoption at this later stage may actually work to the benefit of governments, who have the advantage of the private sector's initial learnings, and CiRM may turn out to be an even more successful concept with public services.

"The surge in interest in CiRM is a reflection of the shift in regional governments' attitude towards citizens," Hanan continues.

"They have realized the importance of a citizen-centric philosophy and culture. An early indication of this trend was the willingness of governments to go online through websites, then portals and now one-stop gateways. They are going where the citizen is going. When you look at it from a broader perspective, you realize that the Internet has gone beyond being just a communication tool with citizens - it is in fact revolutionizing governments' relationships with citizens."

CiRM draws heavily on CRM, using similar technologies, strategies, management practices, and a user-centric approach. It works to maintain and optimize relationships with the public and encourages transparency, thereby improving accountability, enabling citizen participation and online transaction tracking.

Earlier in the year, LINK Development deployed a CiRM solution for the Egyptian Government's Ministry of State for Administrative Development. The solution, based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, was designed to help manage the e-government Call Center in Egypt, and track citizen complaints, questions and suggestions relating to all e-government services. The solution led to a 30% reduction in turnaround time, amongst other improvements in workflow efficiency and cost reduction. Consequently, the project has now grown to a national level, set to include all ministries in Egypt. The project, along with other regional CRM applications, won LINK Development international recognition from Microsoft Corporation globally.

An integral part of LINK Development's CiRM solutions are performance measurement tools known as 'Public Sector Dashboards'. They are designed to help the government assess the efficiency of the system from a citizen's perspective, by generating reports on average closure time per user, number of 'tickets' (or transactions) by category and region, and opened vs. closed 'tickets'.

Hanan says that the benefits offered by CiRM are invaluable to governments. It helps governments automate workflows and integrate business processes and data across various departments and ministries. This automation shortens the transaction cycle by readily having all relevant citizen information and increases efficiency of communication, while enabling problem areas to be identified and escalated.