We heard that the METI Digital Transformation (DX) Office, which was established to take the lead, has hired information technology professionals from the private sector and promoted “agile development.” How are these approaches different from conventional ones?

Maeda: The effort aims for three changes. The first focuses on relations between applicants and public administration. To date, it has been users of administrative services who had to prepare necessary documents and visit relevant offices. Moving forward, the administrative side will work to accommodate users, completely eliminating applicant documents. In other words, the burden undertaken by the respective sides will basically be reversed.

Secondly, we’d like to reverse the relationship between institutional rules and the relevant system. System development in accordance with complicated rules is so inefficient as to be completely useless. So, it needs to be reviewed so that rules correspond to systems.

Lastly, we need to change our mindset from “flow” processing to “stock” processing; this means it’s necessary to utilize applicant information to analyze relevant policies and create new ones.

This series of transformations, promoted mainly by the DX Office, is being pursued uncompromisingly through these three goals.

Ending past policies

Question: There were various initiatives and plans on digitalizing administrative procedures in the past. We heard that you were involved in The e-Japan Strategy crafted in 2001, so could you tell us the difference in measures taken at that time and now? What’s going to change this time?

Maeda: Rather than what’s going to change, the digital transformation effort this time seeks to bring an end to the measures in the past that ended halfway. The concept itself this time has not changed much in that it aims to improve convenience for administrative services and create advanced policies.

However, a mere rallying call does not lead to progress of these efforts. No matter how passionately top officials create plans, it’s not easy for the staff on the front lines to break away from familiar ways of doing and developing things.

Overcoming such a structure and securing a workable system requires upholding a commitment for what should be done and incorporating it to an action plan and in the schedule. Discussing details at the front-line level is essential in realizing this.

Question: Is the effort this time being prompted by the development of digital technology over the years?

Maeda: Data analysis by artificial intelligence and methods such as deep learning were certainly not common at that time, but how to take an approach using technology is more important than technology itself.

We have regrets that we were working to uniformly digitalize one system that received hundreds of applications yearly and another that had just a few applications when we were dealing with the e-Japan initiative. There might have been a stimulated atmosphere caused by an IT bubble at that time; it’s delusional to think that simply exerting leadership can lead to change.

Question: How would digital transformation affect society?

Maeda: As a start, what METI is promoting includes “one-stop” services that allow people to complete a process with a visit to just one website and “once-only” service, which requires no further reports of information if people have already submitted the same information. However, improving convenience and streamlining are not the only goals we are trying to achieve.

We see this digital revolution from the perspective of how to redesign communication between citizens and public administration.

Toward collaborative society

Question: Could you elaborate further on that?

Maeda: If contact points between the public and private sectors expand thanks to data linkage, we have expectations that it would prompt new potential players, such as companies and nonprofits to enter into a sphere previously regarded as that of public service. The platform of public administration and a wide variety of services provided by the private sector would then be connected organically, and high-quality public services that are close to the public’s daily lives would be realized.

In other words, public administration would increasingly play a role as a platform. Such a concept is already in practice in some countries, including Denmark and Estonia. For Japan, which is facing a low birthrate and aging population, realizing a society where various players work together is an urgent task.

In particular, among municipalities facing increasing financial difficulties, it is expected that there will be a spread of moves to sustain administrative functions through mergers. However, merely expanding the size of administrative units could cause fears such as lower service quality for residents and increases in the burden of background work.

That’s why it’s essential to have a viewpoint of nurturing new players to take a role in the public service field, which used to be exclusively handled by the government.

Question: Do you think digital transformation will play a part in bringing that about?

Maeda: I do. Preparing for administrative reform based on digitalization, we are planning to create services that illustrate the look of future public administration in advance in policies for small- and medium-sized businesses.

In July, the ministry established the METI Digital Transformation (DX) Office. Under the premise of promoting digitalization, it serves as a working unit to improve the convenience of administrative services for corporate bodies and to systematically advance policy planning based on data and service improvement.

Behind the establishment of the DX Office lies such awareness as, “It’s not too much to say that the government is the biggest obstacle (in the way of digitalization).”

Today, it is commonplace that people can receive a variety of daily services with just a smartphone. On the contrary, administrative procedures are still mainly handled through massive amounts of paper and an actual window. Such processes put a tremendous burden on people who have to spend their valuable time completing such procedures, among other things.

Many people have likely experienced the inconvenience of going to various offices to compile the necessary documents for an application. The windows are often crowded and visiting them over multiple days right after the offices open — when they aren’t so busy — is difficult.

In the case of a subsidy application, people need to first obtain a certificate of registered matters at the Legal Affairs Bureau before visiting the relevant ministries with necessary documents. They then need to wait until screenings are complete. Upon receiving approval, they need to visit the offices once again. The whole system is not designed for people to obtain support quickly when they need it.

What the government is promoting now is a streamlining of administrative procedures and an improvement of the procedural experience from a user’s viewpoint. These efforts, once realized, are represented by what’s called one-stop service, in which people can complete an administrative procedure following a visit to just one website. It’s also what’s known as once-only service, which requires no resubmission of information after it has been submitted once. The realization of such services would not only improve the convenience of users, but also lead to work-style reform on the administrative end through the promotion of procedural streamlining.

Service change based on data

Another driving force on this front is the accelerating flow of global digitalization. Giant platforms such as Google LLC, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. — collectively known as GAFA — have taken the lead and developed user-friendly services through analyzing enormous amounts of data.

Such ideas can be applicable to policy planning. There are many clues in the information submitted by companies and citizens on the formulation of various policies, who are the recipients of administrative services. Analyzing it could potentially lead to high value-added policy formulation. Additionally, it could possibly give recommendations of services to a user depending on their needs through push notifications.

Economic circles have great expectations for the efforts of DX. NEC Chairman Nobuhiro Endo noted: “The value to be obtained from DX efforts would not be a partial optimization for a unit of a company or administrative office. A state-level effort is essential to create that.”

“In a digitalized era where abundant data would drive economic growth, what matters for Japan to maintain an international competitive edge is the initiative of its government,” Endo said, stressing the significance of DX.

If the public and private sectors could share and utilize data, the effort would expand possibilities to more efficiently provide greater convenience in services at the social end as well.

Overcoming past discussions

In the past, there were a wide range of initiatives and plans on the digitalization of administrative processes. What is particularly still fresh in people’s minds would probably be the e-Japan Strategy announced in 2001. The initiative called for realization of a nation featuring the most advanced information technology in the world.

In administrative efforts of the past, most cases dealt with direct digitalization of existing procedures. But what the government now aims for is to improve customer satisfaction by reviewing the whole concept of the public administration reflecting their viewpoints. In addition, the goal includes facilitating a social environment to produce newly added values through having a collaboration of data and service organically.

The Digital Government Action Plan crafted in January 2018 calls for the introduction of a system conducting administrative procedures via electronic application in general so people can receive such services anytime and anywhere. It also seeks to revise relevant laws and regulations to abolish submission of documents necessary in administrative processes. Additionally, it plans to introduce an identification measure in line with a revised procedure on the premise of digitalization.

METI is promoting its efforts to build a common corporate authentication infrastructure that enables companies to conduct administrative procedures with just one ID and develop a subsidy application system. METI plans to test it for its procedures from fiscal 2019, aiming to spread the initiative to other ministries and agencies from the following fiscal year.

Through these efforts, the government seeks to establish a corporate digital platform that would enable all corporate administrative procedures to be completed digitally.

In working to reform administrative services based on the Digital Government Action Plan, it has been reviewing past policies.

Although past initiatives have contributed to the advancement of infrastructure development such as that for broadband, the action plan pointed out, “it was not necessarily the case that they have produced full impact in terms of concrete values for customers, such as the improvement of usability in their application procedures and betterment of business surroundings.” Additionally, the plan notes that digitalization itself is not a goal, reiterating the intention to materialize a service design-oriented idea based on customer needs.