Technology is not the sole source of organisational improvement. Productivity results from inputs working together including business processes, applications, network infrastructure as well as factors such as worker skills, choice of tools, and the general business environment.

Initially, Net Impact: Public Sector attempted to identify a universal set of best practices that "Connected Organisations" (companies having one or more active enterprise business applications distributed throughout their network) could use to improve productivity. However, every organisation has different operating targets, requiring different actions. For example, the best practices for containing costs are different from those for increasing services volume. Therefore, a set of best practices was identified for four productivity themes:

• Efficiency
• Services volume
• Financial improvements
• Citizen satisfaction

Based on past research, the Net Impact: Public Sector thesis is that enterprises that use Internet business applications, have sophisticated network and technology infrastructures, and align business processes with their technology-enabled capabilities will see greater operating outcomes than organisations that do not undertake these actions. It is this premise, and the need to understand the interaction between these productivity drivers, that determined the specific methodology used in this study.