License portal, partner portal and case management for Strategic Goods Control

Since its inception, the Government of Flanders has conducted a foreign policy. Flanders Chancellery and Foreign Office is responsible for coordinating Flanders’ international and European activities and is therefore in charge of the relations between Flanders and foreign governments, the European Union and international organisations. This includes:

• international and European trade policy
• development cooperation
• controlling the import, export and transit of dual use products, arms and other strategic goods from Flanders
• establishing and implementing European regulations, and concluding and ratifying international treaties.

The Strategic Goods Control Unit automates its processes using Nimbl. By offering an online digital portal , citizens and organisations can request a license or permit for import, export and transit of dual use products, arms and strategic goods. The backoffice applications handles the license request with follow-up on status and indicating lead times (SLA) for a correct and efficient procedure.

Business analysis provided a clear case definition where further details were worked into case models as data and activities: Authorisation, Application Dual Use, Application Military Purpose, Application Civil Firearms, Infringement, Advice, etc.
Logging into the Digital portal application can be done through various authentication mechanisms, including the Belgian E-id or the Itsme application. An end-user can (subject to authorisation) launch various types of applications for himself as an individual or as the person responsible for a company. These applications then typically involve advice and official communications between applicant and the department.
The digital portal is in line with the look&feel of the Flemish government (Webuniversum) and focuses on user-friendliness. BUZA's end-users and partners have a portal where everything can be found in a well-organised way and from where they can communicate quickly with BUZA itself.

Impact for the department:

• As an impact on the organisation, mainly the digitisation itself is already a big gain in time to operational file processing. More applications can be processed within the same time.
• Secondly, the system now better supports DSCG's advisors in their operations to effectively do the right things at the right time (rule logic in the models) and thus helps ensure that 99%+ correction advices are delivered, also supported with deadline monitoring so that legal deadlines are met.
• Central processing of incoming communications, directly linked to the correct file, ensures a higher speed of processing and thus higher customer satisfaction.
• Reporting at the request of the minister (who requires reasonably ad hoc analyses in function of current global politics) is simplified by structure in the file data and unambiguous statuses (based on the outlines of the case models).