The Hindu Business Line : Aim at citizen value, satisfaction

As a citizen, would you be happier if the government were to deliver `more quality, speed, efficiency, convenience, and fairness'? Sure! But can it ever happen? Possible, say Philip Kotler and Nancy Lee, provided the government moves `from being low-tech and low-touch to being high-tech and high-touch'. This is the `roadmap for improved performance' that the duo describes in Marketing in the Public Sector, from Pearson (www.pearsoned.co.in) .

The book opens with almost a dozen examples of how governmental agencies across the world have `seized the opportunity to meet citizen needs. "Marketing turns out to be the best planning platform for a public agency that wants to meet citizen needs and deliver real value." For, marketing's focus is to produce outcomes that the target values. "In the private sector, marketing's mantra is customer value and satisfaction. In the public sector, marketing's mantra is citizen value and satisfaction."

The authors advise public sector managers to choose goals and actions that serve the common good, those that create the maximum good for the maximum number of people. Good, in the public sector context, refers to `social good, economic good, and environmental good - measures often referred to as the triple bottom line'.

Understand the marketing mindset, exhorts a chapter. Among the success stories is the US Postal Service, which achieved, in the third quarter of 2005, `an all-time high score of 96 per cent on-time performance for overnight delivery of First-Class Mail as measured independently by IBM Consulting Services'.

E-Zpass, an electronic toll collection service, also comes in for praise from the authors. "When a pre-paid account is established, customers receive a small tag containing an electronic chip that they attach to the windshield inside their car ... An antenna at the plaza reads the vehicle and account information, and the appropriate toll is then electronically debited from the pre-paid account ... A record of transactions is included in a periodic statement." The innovation has improved traffic flow, by reducing `the needless burning of fuel in cars that are waiting to pay a toll'.

In a chapter on `setting motivating prices, incentives and disincentives,' one reads about the Singapore government wooing Cupid to counter a declining birth rate. The government has offered unmarried university graduates matchmaking services and a Web site called the LoveByte Café, which includes a dating service. "The government has also created an annual Romancing Singapore Festival held in February to celebrate love, romance, and relationships."

A chapter on improving customer satisfaction describes how public sector organisations can benefit from citizen surveys. For instance, in the City of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines, citizens were asked `to rate a list of concerns and needs on a four-point scale in terms of how serious a problem they believed each was for the city'. Contrary to expectations, the `most serious' problems, such as anti-crime service, and low-cost housing, did not top the list. It was `garbage collection' that scored the highest citizen priority.

On how governments can benefit from strategic partnerships, read about New Zealand's `drowning prevention effort'. The country has `one of the highest rates of drowning in the Western world', and so a suite of governmental agencies, non-profit organisations, and private corporations, decided to pool in their `unique areas of expertise and resources'...

Suggested read that our public sector officials can immerse themselves in.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali