Covansys Lays Out E-Government Plan

"We've been operating with an antiquated tax-processing system, and it just reached the point where we couldn't maintain it anymore," said Allen Larson, deputy executive director of the commission. "There were also pressures from the employment community for better service."

The state had a vision of where it wanted to go, and the Web was its ultimate destination. At the same time, the state wanted to cut down on manual processes, such as schlepping tape from one drive to another, and inject modern technology and business knowledge processes into its workflow, Larson said.

In short, South Carolina was looking for e-government, and Covansys was the shepherd that could lead it there. Awarded the contract late last year, Covansys is still in the design-and-testing phase of a system that will allow state workers to automate routine tasks, reduce paperwork and improve efficiency, timeliness and data-capture procedures. Perhaps even more important, the new system will allow employers to file forms and pay unemployment taxes online.

"The best thing about this is that we will provide better service to employers. The employer community has been begging for better, faster service," Larson said. "We'll still take [forms and taxes the old-fashioned way, of course, but we'll be coming into the electronic age. It's almost been embarrassing that we haven't been able to provide this service before."

The South Carolina project is part of Covansys' public-sector practice, which works with more than 25 states and generates roughly one-third of the company's annual revenue, said Arvind Malhotra, public sector practice executive at the Farmington Hills-based solution provider.

Covansys focuses on four segments of the public sector. About 40 percent of the practice's revenue is tied to implementations of its retirement services software. Another 40 percent involves health and human services, particularly child-care management and child-support solutions. Ten percent is derived from transportation solutions, including vehicle registration and titling systems, and 10 percent are e-government deployments, of which the South Carolina commission is one.

Malhotra said it's tough to define e-government exactly. "We struggle with it internally. We see it as a set of solutions that allows government to connect more closely with citizens," he said. "Everything today has an [electronic or Internet flavor because it's important to be able to connect with everyone."

Underlying all of its public sector engagements, but particularly its e-government initiatives, is Covansys' focus on creating a better return on investment for customers, Malhotra said. "[Governments have to automate or enhance customer service in response to shrinking budgets," he said. "Their revenue stream is the tax base, and when that shrinks, the only way for them to cope is to cut the budget and do more with less."

Larson said the new system will allow the commission to do some costcutting and consolidate some of its departments or units. But the main goal of the project is to help the commission provide better service.

The system, which is being built using IBM's VisualAge and WebSphere, will be live by October 2002, but the South Carolina employment commission probably won't put it in full swing until February 2003 because the fall is its busiest season.