Instead, they're exploring different ways to provide services to their constituent groups. That's a major change from how things used to happen. The private sector has been operating in a globally competitive marketplace for 10 or 15 years now, and that intensity has been increasing every year. The government sector has been slowly absorbing that sense of urgency, but it is probably the last one to get it. Competitiveness, the mobility of capital and the increasing attention to getting good returns on scarce capital are the really big reasons behind this new emphasis on information technology.
Government has to be able to deliver value.
If you're out of work because your organization has downsized in order to increase its return on assets, you'll probably be sensitive to the fact that you're paying taxes to a government that's not accountable to you. Or you may notice that you pay taxes to the IRS, which, ironically, has difficulty producing its own audited financial statement though it expects you to produce yours. The good news for companies that do business with the federal government is that there's going to be much more flexibility in procurement and other aspects of the industry-government agency relationship. The bad news is that, in return for a less formal relationship, there's going to be an increasing demand for real performanceand for very high levels of value delivered for money spent. For the public, I think it's almost all good news.