The days of low hanging fruit and easy wins are over. The straightforward business transactions have been automated leaving the more complex services being delivered in traditional ways and more so recently agencies are beginning to wonder if they could create their own “SNB like” service window. Each of these issues alone presents a challenge, but taken together they require a new threshold of business analysis.

Thierault characterizes the contrast between SNB projects at the launch and today; “when we talked about putting the first hundred forms or 200 forms online, those are the simple things. A new service usually starts with a simple licensing or registry program. Then you get into more complex things where you have to have a pretty comprehensive business case. The more complex services often require substantive knowledge or specialists in that type of business. SNB has reached a saturation point in automating simple and high volume processes, and low volume processes are more difficult to justify in terms of costs, so alternative strategies are required.”

Resistance among departments to transfer the delivery of services to SNB is attributable to a number of factors. First, for departments it means losing the power of being a service provider. Second, the departments lose direct contact with their clients, the citizens, when the services are delivered by SNB. Thus, a department’s understanding of the needs of citizens usually captured during day-to-day contact is removed. The business case for moving a service to SNB; whether involving a complex service or to overcome resistance must satisfy both the agency or agencies themselves that the service will be delivered more effectively or efficiently by SNB without a notable loss of power, and to satisfy SNB that it can be done consistent and sustainable way.