The Italian public administration electronic market: Scenario, operation, trends

Abstract

A critical element that has been generally recognized is that the Italian Public Administration provides services and operates emphasizing the formal abidance to administrative regulations and procedures, having in part lost sight of its institutional goal of providing quality and timely services to citizens and -so crucial in our digital age- the goal of "system creation". The opportunity that Italy is given through eGovernment lies in fact in the possibility of promoting a change management of public services towards a culture aimed at the satisfaction of the final user. From this point of view, eProcurement can become the "Trojan Horse" (or the killer application) capable of promoting change within Public Administration. This is true, first of all, because it synthesizes all the critical aspects of typical change management processes: Structure reorganization, integration and interoperability of functions/service, process re-engineering, professional training and growth of human resources, legislative revision, technology introduction, the monitoring of public expenditure and its monitoring (while maintaining the decentralization of expenditure decisions), as well as quality control. Secondly, because it is an issue that covers horizontally all Public Administrations, whose boundaries and procedures are well known and whose achievable results are therefore highly visible and economically valuable. Thirdly, the contracting sector appears more conducive than others to the promotion of this change process because it has the necessary critical mass in terms of expenditure volume to support innovation. Public contracts account for more than 16% of GNP. Lastly, through a growth in the efficiency of public contracts it is possible to achieve results that are substantial and permanent in the areas of process savings, good and services cost savings and of positive externalities in terms of tool innovation that will promote market innovation. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.