The changing relationship between buyer and seller, or between government and the governed, is central to the new management paradigm for the Information Age. More specifically, effective management of the revolution requires effectively managing the changing relationship between and with customers or citizens. This is why thinking purely in terms of service delivery to the citizen doesn't go far enough in government. That is an attempt to streamline the old relationship using new technology without recognizing that the new paradigm calls for the relationship itself to change dramatically. Considered at its most basic level, changes in management involve not just how government manages, but also who is managed and even who is involved in the management process.
Partnerships are increasingly important in government as they are in business.
Yet for a partnership to work, one has to be able to manage the partner. Conversely, the partner also has to be able to manage you. This is clearly apparent in many experiences with outsourcing. If private partners can't be systematically managed and if they cannot control to some degree how government delivers what they need to do their job, the partnership becomes fraught with problems. We often immediately tend to think, for example, of management in terms of a centralized, uniform undertaking.