Application of Quality Function Deployment to improve smart services applications, Dubai public entity as a case study

QFD is a well-known tool that forms a cross-functional planning process to transform customers' needs into detailed requirements. However, it is not that famous in the field of smart applications since technical people usually rely on customer relationship management people to identify their customers' needs and work accordingly. This article describes how public sector entities can use QFD to identify and prioritize smart service applications' characteristics, map them to customer needs and cascaded them down to a lower operational level which is the technical processes. Using a case study of one of Dubai public entities, the process of multi stages or phases has led to identify the importance of using QFD in identifying customers needs of smart services and the main technical processes to enhance them. Modifications have been introduced to the tool to suit the public sector characteristics. This research marks the importance of this tool to the public sector to improve its service similar to the private sector.