California eGovernment: Business Registration Service

Small firms account for a significant portion of the business in California and face the greatest regulatory costs. They are also the ones carrying the burdens of sorting through the government complexity: historically, government services have not been customer-centric.

Government structure is mirrored online and what could have been an opportunity to provide a customer-centric service did not materialize. To start a new business, the customer is required to follow a process spanning multiple agencies. But there is no easy way for businesses to determine what individual state agencies require registration or understand the overall procedures they must follow.

Due to the complexity and scale of organizational structure in the state, the low level of technological maturity, and the lack of coordination across different agencies, design of statewide customer- friendly services has not been an easy task. This project looks to assist the California state eServices Office by developing a framework to enable business registration service that focuses on the customer. While working around the state’s technological limitations in the absence of the statewide service-oriented architecture, it builds upon existing assets and lays out a roadmap for future service development.