Towhidul Alam PavelNorthern University Bangladesh

Introduction

E-services, a business concept developed by Hewlett Packard (HP), is the idea that the World Wide Web is moving beyond e-business and e-commerce (that is, completing sales on the Web) into a new phase where many business services can be provided for a business or consumer using the Web. Some e-services, such as remote bulk printing, may be done at a Web site; other e-services, such as news updates to subscribers, may be sent to your computer. Other e-services will be done in the background without the customer's immediate knowledge. HP defines e-services as "modular, nimble, electronic services that perform work, achieve tasks, or complete transactions.

The concept of E-service (short for electronic service), represents one prominent application of utilizing the use of Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in different areas. However, providing an exact definition of e-service is hard to come by as researchers have been using different definitions to describe e-service. Despite these different definitions, it can be argued that they all agree about the role of technology in facilitating the delivery of services which make them more of electronic services.

E-services constitute a new model for using the Web. It allows the publishing of business functions to the Web and enables universal access to these functions. The architecture that enables it, is presented in the following paragraphs along with the benefits that this architecture could bring to e-business.

It seems compelling to adopt Rowley (2006) approach who defines e-services as: “…deeds, efforts or performances whose delivery is mediated by information technology. Such e-service includes the service element of e-tailing, customer support, and service delivery”. This definition reflects three main components- service provider, service receiver and the channels of service delivery (i.e., technology). For example, as concerned to public e-service, public agencies are the service provider and citizens as well as businesses are the service receiver. The channel of service delivery is the third requirement of e-service. Internet is the main channel of e-service delivery while other classic channels (e.g. telephone, call center, public kiosk, mobile phone, television) are also considered.

A new paradigm for e-business [called e-services, seems to be able to help inthis direction. E-services are self-contained, modular applications that can bedescribed, published, located and invoked over a network. The e-services framework enables an application developer who has a specific need to cover it by using an appropriate e-service published on the Web, rather than developing the related code from scratch. The e-service architecture is the logical evolution from object-oriented systems to systems of services. As in object-oriented systems, some of the fundamental concepts in e-services are encapsulation, message passing and dynamic binding. The e-service approach can be considered as a component-based approach where components are large and loosely coupled. Furthermore, the e-

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service approach advances the component-based paradigm a step beyond signatures, since information related to the quality of service and to what it does is also published in the service interface.

Definition of E-Service

Electronic service shortened as ‘eService’ which refers to any service that is provided by any electronic means e. g. Internet/website, mobile devices or kiosk. According to Goldkuhl & Persson (2006a), eService means that an external user (a citizen) interacts through a user interface of a public IT system based on web technology. Rowley (2006, p.339-359) defined eService as:

“deeds, efforts or performances whose delivery is mediated by information technology (including the Web, information kiosks and mobile devices). Such eService includes the service element of e-tailing, customer support and service, and service delivery.”

Both of the above definitions reflect three main components- the service provider, the channels of service delivery (i.e., technology) and the service receiver. Rowley’s definition seems more explicit as it includes mobile devices. As regards public eService, public agencies are the service providers and citizens as well as businesses are the service receivers. The channel of service delivery is the third requirement of eService. The Internet is the main channel of eService delivery while other classic channels (e.g. telephone, call center, public kiosk, mobile phone, television) are also considered. As complete implementation of an eService takes time, the traditional methods of service delivery (e.g. over-the-counter service, postal mail service) for the same service cannot be neglected during the transition period. In fact, citizens or businesses usually choose a channel of service delivery based on suitability of using the service and their expertise levels.

According to Grönlund (2005), eService is a core component in the eGovernment domain because it bridges the gap between the government administrators and citizens. Figure-1 shows ‘eService’ as one of the main actors in eGovernment domain; where arrows indicate ‘influence’, circles indicate ‘domains of control’ and intersection of circles indicates ‘transactions zones’. In a democratic government system, the triangular relations (as in figure-1) are vital where service delivery is one of the main interactions between public servants (administration) and citizens & businesses (civil society). With the advent of ICT and the Internet, such interactions get a new dimension of ‘virtual interactions’ instead of ‘traditional front-desk interactions’. The strength of virtual interaction is dominated by the eService existence and its quality.

E-Service (or ‘eService’) is a highly generic term, usually referring to ‘The provision of services via the Internet (the prefix 'e' standing for ‘electronic’, as it does in many other usages), thus e-Service may also include e-Commerce, although it may also include non-commercial services (online), which is usually provided by the government.’ (Irma Buntantan & G. David Garson, 2004: 169-170; Muhammad Rais & Nazariah, 2003: 59, 70-71).

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'E-Service constitutes the online services available on the Internet, whereby a valid transaction of buying and selling (procurement) is possible, as opposed to the traditional websites, whereby only descriptive information are available, and no online transaction is made possible.' (Jeong, 2007).

Classification of e-services

The basis of classifying the e-service is from the perspective of the entity providing service and the entity consuming the service. Thus, there are 5 categories. The first three categories are asmentioned in [18], while the last two is our addition to the existing taxonomy in [18].

• B2C (Business to Consumer): This category includes a business organization providing service directly to an end customer, with an intention of making profit.

• C2C (Consumer to Consumer). This category includes business models where consumers provide service directly to another peer consumer with or without an intention of profit. This model inevitably involves a third party which acts as a mediator, providing link information to peer consumers, initiating contacts, and mediating any financial or non financial transactions.

• B2B (Business to Business). This category includes two or more businesses which provide service to another peer organization with an intention of making profit. These interactions represent intermediate links that are usually part of a larger B2C service provided by a business organization.

• G2C (Government to Citizens). This category represents services provided by federal, state or any other governmental agencies to citizens, usually with non-profit intentions.• G2B (Government to Business). This category represents services provided by federal, state or any other governmental agencies to business organizations, usually with nonprofit intentions. These services can individually be classified into three sub-categories based on the type of services they provide. The three sub-categories are:

• Physical: The service provided is in the form of tangible physical entity. For example, selling of books on the Internet by Amazon.com

• Digital: The service is in the form of tangible yet non-physical, but digital entity. For example, selling digital entities like e-books or other resources (ACM library), or selling online Music (MusicNet).

• Pure: The service is neither physical, digital, nor in any other tangible form. The service could be performing certain action which has an affect on the state of the world, but doesn’t necessarily deliver a tangible entity to the service consumer. For example, Online Tax Return Filing. A consumer fills an online form and submits it. The organization providing this service would file the tax return to the department of IRS (Internal Revenue Service) on his behalf. This action does have an affect on the state of world, but there is no tangible entity to be delivered. There have

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been various attempts to classify e-services on different parameters; [18] presents an excellent taxonomy of the e-services, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Classification of e-services:

e-service Pure Service Digital PhysicalB2C Backup.com [3]

E*Trade.comRebateCentral.comAmazon Profiler

E-Music.comeStamp.comACM Digital Library [1]WebMD.comMyDesktop.comElsevier ContentsDirect

WebVan.comOutpost.com trackerMy.FedEx.comOfoto.com [11]

B2B Credit Processing(Authorize.Net [12])

Exponential HumanResources(Employease.com [5])

TradeOut.comSupply ChainManagement (fedex.com)

C2C MSN Messenger [9]Thirdvoice.com

Napster.com [10]Guntella.com

eBay.com [4]FirstAuction.comHalf.comSwapit.com

G2C e-Voting [6]kcmo.org

Govbenefits.gov [8]Recreation.govDor.mo.gov/tax

Sd.govFedAssetSales.gov [7]

G2B Businesslaw.gov [2] Business.govSba.gov [14]

Here, we provide 14 sub-categories of e-services. Many existing and forth coming e-services fit in one of these 14 categories. We pick one e-service as an example from each sub-category, describe it in brief, and then consider its security requirements. These example e-services are not necessarily a complete representation of the security requirements of all services in their respective category, as each service has some peculiar characteristics of its own, which may dictate some additional security requirements or obviate the need of some other. However, these security requirements do represent a common subset for each category and give fair amount of idea about general requirements for that category. Given the sheer number of e-services present today and the mammoth number of e-services that we foresee in the future, presenting a common list of security requirements for them isn’t feasible. Presenting the security requirements in the light of the above taxonomy is more practical way to bring out e-services security.

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Origin of the term E-service

Since its conceptual inception in the late 1780s in Europe and formal introduction in 1993 by the US Government, the term ‘E-Government’ has now become one of the recognized research domains especially in the context of public policy and now has been rapidly gaining strategic importance in public sector modernization. E-service is one of the branches of this domain and its attention has also been creeping up among the practitioners and researchers.

Origin of the term E-service in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a developing country with a population of about 144.5 million (BBS, 2009) where the journey of the digital era basically started in the early 1990s through the use of personal computers. In the late 1990s, mobile phones became available for public use and gradually captured the market (HSR, 2007). The country has established vast mobile communication networks with 54.7 million (38%) mobile phone active subscribers (BTRC, 2010) a number which continues to grow each year. In March 2010, public service telephone network (PSTN) phone subscribers have reached at about 1.72 million (1.2%). On the other hand, Bangladesh belongs to the top ten economies with the least costly mobile cellular sub-basket prices (ITU, 2009).

Figure-1:

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Figure-1: eService as a component in eGovernment domain (Grönlund, 2005)According to ITU (2010), there are about 0.38 % Internet users in Bangladesh as of 2009, again this number is growing rapidly. In 2006 Bangladesh connected to the SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable with data transfer capacity of 14.78 Gbps. The Government has also taken further initiatives to install a second submarine cable backbone as a redundant and alternate path to overcome the risk from disruption of the first one (Rahman, 2010). The government has exempted all taxes on computers and peripherals to promote Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (SICT, 2008). The government has also been promoting call centers to develop business process outsourcing industry (BTRC, 2009). National ICT Policy’2002 has revised and replaced by national ICT Policy’2009 with notable changes in the methodological framework in the policy document including planned action items. The ICT Policy’2009 also reflects the government’s vision to establish a “Digital Bangladesh” by the year 2021. The passing of the ICT Act 2009 and the Right to Information Act 2009 are further steps by the government to move forward. These acts include regulation of electronic payment and digital signatures as well as establishing a Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) which paves the way for introducing secure online payment services, a pre-condition for transactional eService implementation. All these efforts and developments show that Bangladesh is in a transition of moving into establishing nationwide electronic connectivity. The government has also established the 'National Identity Registration Authority (NIRA)’ under an Ordinance in 2008 to provide 18 services to citizens e.g. passport issue, opening bank account etc. It has introduced Voter/Citizen’s ID cards, an initial step towards a future national electronic ID card system; which will assist in providing data for other national priorities such as integrating electronic services. In its consequence the government has passed National Identification Registration Law, 2010 very recently.

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Major EService initiatives in Bangladesh

All the organizations surveyed have launched websites as the primary initiatives of eService development. These websites were established in different years during the last decade, starting from the year 1999, although the survey shows that a large number (52.2%) of them were launched between 2004 and 2007. The contents of all the websites surveyed are in the English language while a few (27%) of them have Bengali contents in addition. None of the sites supports usage by visually impaired people (e.g. enlarges text or change color). Most of the sites (54%) were developed and financed under development projects while 41% were financed under the revenue budget. Table-3 shows a summary on website development and financing practices. Table 3: Website development and finance

Maintenance and updates were being done by internal ICT professionals (52%), outsourcing (27%) and in some cases by both (18%). About 9% respondents had no idea regarding the updating of their organization’s website while 66% reported that their websites were updated ‘regularly’ and 23% reported ‘occasionally’. Even though a significant number (64%) of respondents were not acquainted with the ‘Quick Wins’ initiatives (see section 1.0) of the government regarding eService development, these initiatives ultimately have produced several eServices which are currently under operation or in the development stage. Such major eServices for citizens and businesses were identified in the survey and the list of eServices is exhibited at the end of this paper in Annex-1. Table-4 shows the public sector eService development practices based on service recipients (citizens or business entities) and service types (registration, license permit, etc.). It reflects that 70% of reported eServices were developed for citizens only while 12% were for businesses and the remaining 18% eServices (e.g. vehicle registration) were developed for both citizens as well as businesses.

Table 4: Percentage of public eServices by recipients and service type

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Table-5 shows the percentage of eServices according to service fee payments mode. The table reveals that 86% eServices are now under operation while the remaining 14% are in the development stage. Some of these will be launched in the current year. About 44% eServices do not require any

service fee, 28% eServices require cash payment at the service counter, and 14% require cash payment at the bank. One of the important observations is that 14% public eServices have provision of paying service fee through mobile phone SMS, among which 13% are services are currently in operation.

Table 5: Percentage og public eServices according to service fee payments modes

Maturity level of eServices

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The maturity of eService is assessed following the EU20 measurement technique where 20 basic eServices were investigated. The categories of EU20 eServices were matched with the public eServices in Bangladesh identified under the survey. Only 10 categories of eServices have been matched against the EU20 services as presented in table-6 that includes 7 (seven) eServices for citizens and the rest 3 (three) e- services are for businesses.

Table 6: Bangladesh 10 eServices (as of may 2010)

Whereas 10 categories of basic public eServices in Bangladesh are used (in comparison with the EU20), the assessment of maturity level is done based on all eServices as reported by respondents. Information regarding the same eService reported by more than one respondent is included for simplicity. Information which does not map to the EU20 services is also considered for measuring the maturity level of eServices because most of the eServices are at primary stage.

E-service benefits

Lu (2001) identifies a number of benefits for e-services, some of these are:

Accessing a greater customer base Broadening market reach Lowering of entry barrier to new markets and cost of acquiring new customers Alternative communication channel to customers Increasing services to customers Enhancing perceived company image Gaining competitive advantages Potential for increasing customer knowledge

Challenges to E-services in the Developing World

The future of e-service is bright but some challenges remain. There are some challenges in e-service, as Sheth & Sharma (2007) identify, are:

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Low penetration of ICT especially in the developing countries; Fraud on the internet space which is estimated around 2.8billion USD Privacy due the emergence of various types of spyware and security holes, and Intrusive characteristics of the service (e.g. mobile phones based) as customers may not

like to be contacted with the service providers at any time and at any place.

The first challenge and primary obstacle to the e-service platform will be penetration of the internet. In some developing countries, the access to the internet is limited and speeds are also limited. In these cases firms and customers will continue to use traditional platforms. The second issue of concern is fraud on the internet. It is anticipated that the fraud on the e-commerce internet space costs $2.8 billion. Possibility of fraud will continue to reduce the utilization of the internet. The third issue is of privacy. Due to both spyware and security holes in operating systems, there is concern that the transactions that consumers undertake have privacy limitations. For example, by stealthily following online activities, firms can develop fairly accurate descriptions of customer profiles. Possibility of privacy violations will reduce the utilizations of the internet. The final issue is that e-service can also become intrusive as they reduce time and location barriers of other forms of contract. For example, firms can contact people through mobile devices at any time and at any place. Customers do not take like the intrusive behavior and may not use the e-service platform. (Heiner and lyer, 2007)[22]

Social, Cultural and Ethical Implications of E-services

The perceived effectiveness of e-Service can be influenced by public’s view of the social and cultural implications of e-Technologies and e-Service.

Impacts on Individuals’ Rights and Privacy – as more and more companies and government agencies use technology to collect, store, and make accessible data on individuals, privacy concerns have grown. Some companies monitor their employees' computer usage patterns in order to assess individual or workgroup performance. Technological advancements are also making it much easier for businesses, government and other individuals to obtain a great deal of information about an individual without their knowledge. There is a growing concern. that access to a wide range of information can be dangerous within politically corrupt government agencies.

Impact on Jobs and Workplaces - in the early days of computers, management scientists anticipated that computers would replace human decision-makers. However, despite significant technological advances, this prediction is no longer a mainstream concern. At the current time, one of the concerns associated with computer usage in any organization (including governments) is the health risk – such as injuries related to working continuously on a computer keyboard. Government agencies are expected to work with regulatory groups in order to avoid these problems.

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Potential Impacts on Society – despite some economic benefits of ICT to individuals, there is evidence that the computer literacy and access gap between the haves and have-nots may be increasing. Education and information access are more than ever the keys to economic prosperity, yet access by individuals in different countries is not equal - this social inequity has become known as the digital divide.

Impact on Social Interaction – advancements in ICT and e-Technology solutions have enabled many government functions to become automated and information to be made available online. This is a concern to those who place a high value on social interaction.

Information Security - technological advancements allow government agencies to collect, store and make data available online to individuals and organizations. Citizens and businesses expect to be allowed to access data in a flexible manner (at any time and from any location). Meeting these expectations comes at a price to government agencies where it concerns managing information – more specifically, ease of access; data integrity and accuracy; capacity planning to ensure the timely delivery of data to remote (possibly mobile) sites; and managing the security of corporate and public information.

Conclusion

E-services is the next stage of evolution for e-business. Perhaps what is the most intriguing about the e-service paradigm is that what it matters is the e-service functionality irrespectively of the technology that has been used to build them. An eservice is accessible over the web, it exposes an XML interface, it is registered and can be located through an e-service registry and it communicates with other services using XML messages over standard Web protocols. Therefore, all web services environments can interoperate – at least in theory. There are a number of standards, frameworks and tools that support e-services but it seems that they still are in early stages of development. In this paper we have given an overview of evolving standards, such as WSDL, SOAP and UDDI and we 14 Thomi Pilioura and Aphrodite Tsalgatidou examined the various technical challenges and the corresponding research contributions. From this analysis, it became obvious that the examined existing standards approach e-service development bottom-up and provide solutions only to problems at a very low abstraction level. They don’t tackle problems existing at a high abstraction level, e.g. how a business user can describe his/her needs? How can s/he select the optimum service from a number of different providers? How can s/he be sure that the selected e-service indeed satisfies his/her needs? We consider that answers to these questions are of first priority as, there is not any use to know the format of messages of an e-service if you don’t know if this service satisfies your needs, need. We examined some original research contributions that address the eservice development using a top-down approach in this

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area e.g. the CMM project [38]. We think that what is needed is a merger between these solutions and the existing standards.

It seems that E-services may be an evolutionary step in designing distributed applications, however, they are some issues that require careful consideration. There are a lot of hurdles and limitations that must be overcome in order for mass adoption to occur. It is important that all initiatives cooperate in the development of universally accepted e-services standards, because one of the key attributes of Internet standards is that they focus on protocols and not on implementations. Otherwise, competing standards from industry heavyweights could prevent widespread adoption of eservices

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