The ClientView
A Talk with NYC's Tech Chief
New York City has garnered some positive press lately regarding a new e-hotline otherwise known as 311. Consulting Magazine recently spoke to Gino Menchini — New York City's commissioner for information technology and telecommunication — about the unique service and the consulting firm that helped implement it.
CM: The term e-government means different things to different people. What does it mean to you?
Menchini: To be able to interface with government in the same way we are now accustomed to dealing with retailers and other types of large entities. For example, to buy an IBM PC or to get support for a PC, you shouldn't be required to know how IBM is structured. The government has not been like this. New York City discussed having a consolidated call center, and it's really a lot more than a consolidated call center. It dovetails into what's been the promise of e-government, of having the ability to be able to contact one place for anything, whether it's on the Web or on the phone.
CM: How quickly were you able to implement 311?
Menchini: The mayor had set a one-year timeframe for us to deliver 311. And for the most part we hit that mark. So we had a very tight time frame with an extremely aggressive project schedule, and virtually no slack time within our project plans, and our need to be able to execute really flawlessly, and I think we did that. … And, well, there was an early completion incentive that was a part of this contract, and that was one aspect of what we did to try to share some aspect of the risk.
CM: Did the management of the companies that supplied the solution participate?
Menchini: There was a tight collaboration with Accenture, with Siebel, and with Sun. And all of our corporate partners were involved to the very highest of levels, especially when we were getting toward the point when all of the aspects of the project needed to converge. There were a number of instances in which Joe Forehand of Accenture was personally involved with phone calls and issues, along with Tom Siebel of Siebel.
CM: Can you give an example of how you measure the success of 311?
Menchini: The percentage of transactions that are completed at the call center without having to do a transfer to another agency varies between 60 and 75 percent of the overall call volume. And there are fewer and fewer transfers.
More Kudos for Marvin
A little more than a year after his death at 99, Marvin Bower, the modern founder of
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