برنامه نظارت تامین تجهیزات دولت الکترونیک ، مدل رشد و اندازه گیری های اولیه

Electronic government procurement (eGP) is quickly becoming an essential piece of national e-government programs, since it enables active transparency and favors efficient vendor relationships; however, little attention has been paid to the need for periodical measurement of eGP portals' performance and goal satisfaction. Although maturity levels schemes have been proposed for other domains, most notably IT-related, to the best of our knowledge no maturity level model of eGP has been widely deployed yet. This article presents the e-Government Procurement Observatory Maturity Model (eGPO-MM), which focuses on both legal and institutional arrangements, and portals' technical aspects; the model consists of two Leverage Domains, seven Key Domain Areas, and 25 Critical Variables, which are valued with a weighted scoring system that produces quantitative indicators about portal capabilities and allows direct comparisons. The model was used to evaluate eGP portals from 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean; the measurements are presented, and fit well with previous rank perception, leading to a good reception by participant agencies. eGPO-MM has already allowed to identify areas for joint action and fostered knowledge-sharing among governments, including identification and dissemination of e-procurement best practices; it also established clear reference points to allow each agency to determine a roadmap to higher e-procurement maturity.

Electronic Government Procurement (eGP) is quickly becoming an essential piece of national e-government programs, since it enables active transparency and favors efficient vendor relationships. eGP systems (Curtin University of Technology, Multilateral Development Bank, 2007 and Talero, 2001) not only increase transparency, and might decrease corrupt practices, but also increase productivity of day-to-day procurement activities within agencies, and may attract new suppliers to do business with the government. Current eGP challenges (Brun, Corti, & Cozzini, 2007) include knowing how to make the procurement system more efficient and effective given available technology; promoting legal frameworks and good management practices; and creating an appropriate institutionalism. Measuring the maturity levels of public procurement portals allows eGP agencies not only to increase the transparency of public procurements, but also to identify areas for joint action, fostering knowledge-sharing among agencies, and contributing to identify and disseminate e-procurement best practices. It also establishes clear reference points so eGP agencies can determine what requires to be done to achieve a higher maturity level (Dewan & Kraemer, 2000). In Latin America and the Caribbean, establishing maturity levels is even more relevant because there are at least three common themes across nations: dissimilar eGP development, lack of resources, and few instances of communication and exchange of ideas (Vaidya, Sajeev, & Callender, 2006). The proposed model focuses on addressing all three themes: its early development benefited from the participation of several government representatives to ensure ownership of the system1; model measurements and experiences are shared through the Interamerican Network on Government Procurement (INGP)2; and early feedback was gathered from the network, thus promoting model ownership, besides the direct benefits from participants' experience and knowledge. This article presents the design and initial application of a maturity model for e-procurement, developed with support of the Organization of American States and the Interamerican Development Bank. The rest of this article is structured as follows: Section 2 describes the overall issues and related work on e-government and maturity models; Section 3 describes the eGPO-MM maturity model and its components; Section 4 presents the design and results of an initial study with 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries; Section 5 compares eGPO-MM with other maturity models; Section 6 explores some future work; and Section 7 summarizes and concludes.

Government e-procurement (eGP) is an essential piece of national e-government programs, but little attention has been paid to the need for periodical measurement of eGP portals' performance and goal satisfaction. Maturity levels schemes have been proposed for other domains, most notably IT-related, but (to our knowledge) no maturity level has been proposed for eGP. This article introduced the e-Government Procurement Observatory Maturity Model (eGPO-MM), whose objective is to provide a tool for periodical measurement of government e-procurement portals status across the Latin American region, and to identify experiences/practices that can be shared among the regional eGP network members. The eGPO-MM consists of two Leverage Domains, seven Key Domain Areas (or Sub-domains), and 25 Critical Variables. The two Leverage Domains are Technological Functionalities, and Legal and Institutional Affairs. A pilot study involved 18 eGP national agencies from Latin America and Caribbean, members of the Inter-American Network on Government Procurement (INGP). The overall results and countries ranking aligned well with the previous perception of most agencies, thus validating its outcome, and was well received by the participants. The eGPO-MM not only yields a diagnostic, but also enables development of an improvement roadmap for eGP in each participating country; it is indeed an instrument to align eGP with the objectives and best practices of e-governance. Additionally, it can give external funding agencies (e.g. multilateral banks) an overall idea of the e-procurement system status in the region, supporting their own planning efforts. The successful outcome of the initial experience suggests that this model will reinforce the network and will help to reduce gaps in eGP development in the region.