So often overshadowed by its large neighbor to the south, Canada has learned how to do things its own way, without a lot of fanfare.

Take electronic government. For three years in a row, Canada ranked No. 1 out of 22 countries in a global survey, which is startling news to many. Canada achieved this success not by showcasing Web portals or high-profile applications, but by building trust among its citizens.

Canada Post, the Canadian postal system, created the world's first electronic post office, and is part of a consortium of vendors and service providers who are building the Canadian government's technology infrastructure, called Secure Channel, to allow citizens to access government services securely over the Internet.

"We realized a long time ago that people might not like us, but they trust us," said Dean Pope, general manager of electronic/Internet services and products for Canada Post. "What we have been working off as a strategy is building on that trust."

Canada Post, said Pope, has developed an electronic postmarking service. Much like the postmark on a letter provides an origin, date and time stamp, "Our role is to validate the transactions that took place and put our stamp to prove it," said Pope.

Canada, a nation of about 31 million people, is divided into 10 provinces and three territories. It is the only country in an Accenture E-Government Leadership survey to have reached what Accenture calls the service transformation stage -- using a customer relationship management (CRM) approach to deliver transactional e-services citizens want, and integrating those services seamlessly across many departments and agencies.

The federal government committed approximately $660 million to the initiative. Most of the 130 e-services slated for completion by 2005 are up and running, although many are still being fine-tuned and developed into more sophisticated offerings. According to the June 2003 Government On-Line Annual Report, the available e-government services get their share of use. In 2002, more than 400,000 Canadians applied for employment insurance online and 9 million (43 percent) filed their tax returns electronically.

"What most impressed us about Canada is the amount of collaboration and discussion that has gone on, and not just at the federal level," said Graeme Gordon, a partner with Accenture. "It really is another factor that differentiates it. Canada understands this is about more than simply the Internet, it's about service transformation and really focusing on customer service."

While the impetus for providing e-services comes largely from a citizenry that has become accustomed to conducting much of its daily business online -- Canadians are highly enthusiastic about online banking, for example -- it also is driven by the goal to improve delivery of government services overall and achieve efficiencies, he said.

"E-government is a lightning rod for service transformation," said Gordon. "Government is under pressure to continue improving, yet budgets aren't increasing, so they're having to learn how to do things more effectively."

Doing things more efficiently means applying some private-sector practices -- particularly CRM -- that have helped large enterprises improve their customer service. Banks, for example, routinely use CRM to understand which customers make them the most money and which cost the most to service.

While governments such as Canada's have embraced the CRM theory -- at least the better service part -- they're reticent to wholeheartedly apply a private-sector practice to public-sector organizations. "Governments are afraid when you start talking segmentation, that it means some people will be treated differently. Some people are worried CRM will lead to treating certain citizens with kid gloves," said Gordon. "But that's not what it's about. It's about understanding what people want and providing good, consistent service."


Efficient Transitions
For Michelle d'Auray, CIO for the Canadian government, CRM is citizen, not customer, relationship management. The government uses CRM, she said, not so