One Stop eGovernment for Small and Medium- Sized Enterprises (SME): A Strategic Approach and Case Study to Implement the EU Services Directive

In view of EU services directive, providers of public services are required to reengineer their product and process organization. Of the underlying information systems and the IT infrastructure this has direct influence on the organization. The fundamental requirements include the establishment of points of single contact for enterprises and the procedures and formalities relating to access to a service activity and to the exercise thereof by electronic means. In addition to the federal and regional authorities, the municipalities are especially affected by this, as they hold most of the process and decision-making authorities of the government services sector. Virtualization and bundling of service goods will be subsequently introduced as essential differentiation criteria. In doing so, the degree of virtualization of public services is already high in many places. Nevertheless, this development with respect to the bundling of services is still in the initial phase. This article presents a strategic approach to the bundling of public services. The strategy approach will substantiated for the state capital of Düsseldorf in terms of a “One-Stop eGovernment” with main focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.