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Government Business Model Experiences

More specifically, I'm interested in sharing my experience and also understanding the communities views of Government department and Public Sector "business models"?

I had the honour and pleasure of working with the UK's newly formed (actually still forming!) HM Government Skunkworks team a weeks ago facilitating the first draft articulation of the Skunkworks business model.

Having run-through the process several times already both with our own company, commercial organisations and adapting the technique as a "project framing tool" for Microsoft Sharepoint projects, it was really interesting to work with an innovative team (a) in Central Government (b) Early in the process of the team being formed.

The canvas will be published soon, but I was really interested to hear what experiences you have had working with the BMC in local or central government?

I found the whole process very enlightening, but I also felt that the "Customer Relationships" segment was the most challenging to populate both from my perspective as a facilitator/innovator and from the client team perspective?

Whats your thoughts and experiences?

Tags: Canvas, Government, Public Sector

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Permalink Reply by Gertjan Verstoep on March 29, 2011 at 9:09pm

From my perspective government is looking for a more open 'value network' orientation, to mobilize all relevant resources. In the BMC this looks like a resource based BM innovation, tapping into latent resources to create together with other (new) partners new public solutions.

Gertjan

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Permalink Reply by Mike Lachapelle on March 29, 2011 at 11:51pm

Ant;

Most of the work I have done during the last 4 years has been in the federal government sector here in Canada. I have worked on projects from individual business groups to business lines, departments and some work on government wide business models.

As you have experienced, I have found the concept of customer relationship management is not well developed in most of the clients with whom I have worked. That may be in part because government organizations rarely think of themselves as a 'business', and their customers, most often, are a captive audience where the quality of the service is rarely a make or break factor in the success of the organization.

Each project has highlighted different aspects of the canvas as its core issue. One of the groups, that did a lot of business on the internet, needed to think about their channel strategy. The international aid agency needs to focus on its partnerships in other countries. But I believe the most common problem I have encountered is understanding the value proposition-client segment relationship.

Government likes to promote and believe everything it does is for the citizens of Canada. That may be the strategy for the whole of government, but if you are a central service organization for the government, your clients are the other departments, not the citizens. If you are dealing with grants and contributions, the clients are the organizations and individuals who receive the funds, not the citizens who receive the programs delivered by the G&C recipients.

The other facet of this is the value being delivered. The government has a tendency to think of itself as a process organization and define everything by what it does, not what value is created and delivered to the clients. Great example, the procurement organization believed its value proposition was contracting. It took some effort to help them understand if the supplier fails to deliver on a contract, then no value has been created for the client. It is the delivered good or service that is the VP not the contract that is created.

I am very interested in seeing the results of your work. If there any particular aspects you would like to discuss, please shout out.