The government and public sector clearly have soaring ambitions to become “Digital First,” but the journey can be long and tedious in the absence of a solid strategy. The creation of frontline digital services for the public can become successful only when the employees possess the tools they need to deliver high-quality services. A Digital First public sector must first be a digital workplace to improve productivity and citizen engagement.
We typically relate “Digital” to implementing innovative technology or discovering new business opportunities. But the foundation of Digital-first must be innovatively re-define or revamp existing services and schemes to enhance the customer experience.
For public sectors to become fully digitally capable, they would need a comprehensive and well-defined digital transformation strategy.
Digital Transformation for the Public Sector and its Challenges
Digital transformation of the public sector involves the integration of technology into all areas of business and operations. This involves a fundamental change in business operations aimed at delivering value to customers.
Some of the challenges to effective public sector digital transformation are:
- Devising and implementing an effective roadmap for the digital initiatives that meet the compliance, industry and budgetary requirements.
- Obtaining the complete support of vendors, staff and the management.
- Training and educating staff in tools, practices, and workflows that accompany the “Digital First” approach.
- Implementing technologies that drive digitization such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain with minimum interruption to existing processes.
Steps towards a Digital-First Approach for the Public Sector
Cater to the ever-changing demands of Employees and Citizens
In today’s world, citizens wish to interact with public sector departments personally, quickly, and conveniently via digital platforms. Public sector staff must be empowered to access all the tools and information required to spend more time in citizen engagement. The government must transform outdated systems and slow processes with modern tools and the workplace experience to embrace the Digital First strategy. This step will empower the workforce to deliver their best service to customers anywhere, anytime.
Profitable Partnerships with the Private Sector
It could be an overwhelming task for the government departments to overhaul existing outdated systems, old rules, untrained staff and so on all alone. Some public sectors have adopted a win-win business model by partnering with the private sector industry, especially in the service delivery domain. In these models, the technology, licenses, functions, applications are the responsibility of the private sector and the investment is a part of the business model. This ensures minimum investment for the public sector and optimal service efficiency.
Business Processes Restructuring
Complete business process overhauling remains the biggest challenge in public sector digital transformation. A full-blown approach to process revamp needs a mindset change among employees, skill enhancement, training, regulations change, and the appropriate supportive environment. Once change management is successful, the workforce will increase their productivity and will be able to add value to the digital environment and make it sustainable.
Adopt Automation to achieve operational efficiency
Automation is the biggest driver for the Digital First approach for the public sector. Automation re-invents citizen interaction and interaction between government departments. Cutting edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Machine Learning must be used by the organization to digitally transform the existing processes and revolutionize the way the public sector delivers services.
Enhance Accessibility of Services
Digital transformation must enable citizens to access any public sector service or application from any device and location. The digital infrastructure must have built-in security features for data access by various users. The customers, employees and other stakeholders must have clearly defined roles, duties, authorization, and access rights at all levels.
Maintain centralized control over data and assets
Although the partnership with the private sector will reap huge benefits for digital transformation, the data and important assets must remain at a centralized location with the execution of “Strategic control”. The Strategic control Team has specialized domain and technical skills to manage the critical data.
Clear Data Governance Model
The digital data governance model must be clearly defined, and it must reflect the roles and processes. The model must answer questions about the owner of data, custodian of data, data collection process, and how the data collected is stored and shared. Data points visibility must be clear as public sector organizations also engage with the private sector for application development.
Design a Winning Digital Transformation Strategy
To achieve end-to-end digital transformation of the public sector, organizations must bring in a cultural shift along with accountability and transparency in operations. The transformation strategy must include a robust feedback handling system for citizens and other beneficiaries. The employees must be empowered to handle the digitization changes and to realize the potential of labour-saving automation. The transformation roadmap must continuously develop and evolve to be successful.
How Neuronimbus can help in Public Sector Digital Transformation?
An innovative business model, end-to-end business process re-engineering, mobile-first adaptability and secure digital connectivity amongst stakeholders are the pillars of a successful Digital First approach for the public sector.
Neuronimbus can help in the digital transformation of the Public Sector through our digital creative services. Digital Innovations form a core part of our services that focus on all aspects of digital design and implementation. Few of our core strengths are leaning on state-of-the-art technology such as AI, Chatbots, Personal Digital Assistants and modern communication platforms.
Neuronimbus can offer the right blend of technology, focus and experience to ensure a framework that can contribute optimally to the Digital First approach for the Public Sector.
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