A Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland study highlights seven key findings regarding the relationship of government initiatives to operational efficiency and organizational effectiveness:

• Government entities tended to look internally for transformation opportunities. Sixty-two percent of the goals for initiatives were internally focused. Only 22 percent of goals were to improve customer service

• Overall, initiatives provided moderate operational efficiency and organizational effectiveness benefits – average score = 3.3 (Scale: 1 = low, 5 = high)

• Highest benefits ensued from investments in IT infrastructure/enterprise architecture and “e-Workplace”/Intranets. So far, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) have provided less benefits

• State and local governments made similar investments with similar results

• The primary benefits across all initiatives were improved information distribution and more effective/efficient customer service, even when these were not the primary goals of the initiatives

• Investments have not significantly helped to reduce operational and service delivery costs or enhance employee development

• The primary barriers to higher benefits were a lack of organization and process transformation required to support initiatives.

In short, state and local governments are making significant investments, but their results are not fulfilling expectations often enough. With no end in sight to financial constraints, there is an ongoing need to optimize the ROI of every initiative.