The role of cloud computing and citizens relationship management in digital government transformation

Abstract

Cloud computing is expected to be a fundamental part of e-government strategy in the upcoming years, contributing to the digital government transformation at national, regional and local-municipal level. Citizens relationship management (CiRM) represents a combination of methods and ICT applications used by governments to manage their relationship with citizens. Provided through appropriate cloud computing deployment and services models, CiRM can support governments to adopt a new paradigm shift by viewing and managing citizens as customers, in order to respond quickly and accurately to citizen requests or inquiries and to provide access to e-government services, thus fostering more open, innovative, participatory and trustworthy communities. The paper analyses the role of cloud computing and citizens relationship management and proposes a theoretical model for the exploration of digital government transformation. Furthermore, it explores the advantages, barriers and challenges that are associated with cloud computing and CiRM in the public sector and suggests appropriate cloud computing models for CiRM deployment.