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Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr John C Tsang, at the Public Sector Reform Conference 2008 this afternoon (March 28):
Distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure for me to join you here this afternoon.
In the past few days, we have been giving considerable thought to Hong Kong's future, and how we can best position ourselves to meet tomorrow's challenges and grasp tomorrow's opportunities. This conference continues with the same theme, focusing on the delivery of public services in the next generation.
Reforming public sector services is an important issue not just for Hong Kong, but for most other modern economies. People everywhere are enjoying a higher standard of living, and naturally, they are demanding better, more efficient and dynamic services from both the public and the private sectors.
The next generation of public services will have to live up to these new expectations, and I believe, just like the private sector, successful design and branding will be a key factor in helping us meet these enhanced expectations.
When we talk about design, we are talking about a tool for creative problem-identification and problem-solving. It is the link between creativity and innovation, as our distinguished speaker Sir George Cox has described. Allow me to borrow the words of another IT visionary, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs. He said, and I quote: "Design is not about what it looks like and feels like. Design is actually how it works."
Design actually is not limited in the applications to products, it is equally applicable to services. For many people, it represents a tool for social innovation to help the underprivileged and to make our world a better place.
Successful design is about teamwork, engaging fully the stakeholders, in particular the public. People are increasingly demanding services that are tailored to their specific needs, they do not want to adjust their lives to suit the services available. Developments in information technology can play an important part in delivering public services to the people.
Also remember that some of the best ideas are also the simplest ideas.
Bank of America provides a good example. Like its competitors, Bank of America is always keen to entice people to open new accounts, and it looks for new innovative ways to boost its customer base. A few years ago, in 2004 actually, a team of experts - hired by Bank of America - noticed that customers would often round up their transactions to the nearest dollar for speed and convenience. They expanded on that simple notion and eventually created a new service called "Keep the Change", which automatically rounds up purchases made by the bank's Visa debit cards to the nearest dollar. The difference is transferred from the customer's checking account to the savings account. It is quick, easy and can even save customers quite a bit of money in the long run.
The service was launched in 2005 and within a year, it had attracted 2.5 million customers. That equated to more than 700,000 new debit card accounts and one million savings accounts for the bank. Impressed by the service, 99% of its subscribers have chosen to keep the service, and, of course, their change too! The service won the 2007 International Design Excellence Award for service innovation.
So a simple design concept can make a big difference.
Unlike banks, the Government is not a profit making business, but we do have a wide exposure to the general public. We can lose customers with unsatisfactory service or excessive red tape, but more important for us, poor services can cause great damage to our image as a government and create negative perceptions among the public.
For public services, it is no longer good enough to meet the demands of the community by simply applying pressure to existing models and squeezing more productivity out of the system. It just won't work. We need to go beyond the current box. Some people say we need a new box. The mindset must change. And design can offer a solution.
What about branding?
We need look no further than our own "flying dragon" logo and the phrase "Asia's world city" for an example. The Hong Kong Brand has become known overseas since it was launched some seven years ago. Hong Kong is regarded as a vibrant, multi-cultural city with plenty of opportunities for those who dare to take the plunge. But given the many changes around us, since its issuance some seven years ago, we are now in the process of reviewing its relevance and applicability through an extensive public engagement exercise. We shall update you again when we have moved to the next stage of development.
Another example, the phrase "Cool Britannia" helped to give Britain a fresh lease of life in the mid-1990s, portraying an image of a dynamic, cosmopolitan and progressive economy in the world arena. Canada's Maple Leaf and New Zealand's Silver Fern are strong symbols of national identity and the image of a bounding kangaroo has done wonders for Australia's Tourist Commission.
On a smaller scale, who can forget the image of "Lap Sap Chung" and the positive impact it had on the Clean Hong Kong Campaign?
The point is that effective branding is crucial to the successful introduction of the next generation of public services. Branding can galvanise support for a public service among the community. It can communicate the goals and aspirations of a new initiative or programme. And good branding represents the overall strategy, which is to be implemented from the top level right up to the frontline.
We need to put our creative thinking caps on to come up with the best innovations, designs and branding concepts to give the public what they demand from the next generation of public services and ensure that these services will be well received by the community. We need also to adjust our systems accordingly in order to ensure that we are able and ready to deliver the services that the public demands.
Ladies and gentlemen, this conference should not be taken in isolation. It is part of a wider, on-going effort to enhance our city's overall competitiveness.
Not only should the Government take the lead in setting out a clear vision for Hong Kong in the next decade and beyond, but we should also set a good example for the private sector to follow.
This conference is also part of an overall campaign to revitalise the Hong Kong Brand, so that our brand that we made seven years ago can continue to reflect a general consensus on the direction that we want to go, as well as represent the long-term aspirations of the Hong Kong people.
We need not only to consider upgrading our current public services to better suit the next generation, but also think about the new services which could be in strong demand in the next decade or two. An ageing population, environmental concerns and new technologies are just some of the things we need to consider.
No doubt our distinguished speakers will have many other ideas to share with us. I thank Sir George Cox, Dr Paul Temporal, Professor John Heskett and Clement Kwok for taking the time to talk to us today. I'm sure their presentations will give us plenty of food for thought on designing and branding our next generation of public services.
Thank you.
Ends/Friday, March 28, 2008
Issued at HKT 17:30
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