Upgrading the public sector to an e‑government

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is forc­ing busi­ness­es from all sec­tors to rethink their cus­tomer rela­tion­ships and how to meet their needs.

The smartest organ­i­sa­tions realise that dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion is not about tech­nol­o­gy, but evolv­ing cus­tomer behav­iour.

So cus­tomers are com­ing to expect a cer­tain lev­el of dig­i­tal inter­ac­tion with all organ­i­sa­tions and that includes pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies.

Even the most inno­v­a­tive pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies face prob­lems when try­ing to trans­form dig­i­tal­ly.

Enter­pris­es strug­gle to bal­ance cur­rent results and future invest­ments, as well as swap­ping out estab­lished exec­u­tives for new­er man­age­ment with the req­ui­site com­pe­tences to lead dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion.

It’s even hard­er for pub­lic organ­i­sa­tions. Pub­lic sec­tor actors are attempt­ing to make the move from opaque, top-down, bureau­crat­ic and paper-based trans­ac­tion­al mod­els towards online, inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal ser­vices that pro­mote a new kind of rela­tion­ship between cit­i­zens and the state.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty to inno­vate is game-chang­ing if pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies can get the fund­ing to work on new dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives

The pub­lic sec­tor, gen­er­al­ly a colos­sal organ­i­sa­tion­al behe­moth with the turn­ing cir­cle of a small plan­et, under­stand­ably finds it hard to be nim­ble and agile.

And it doesn’t only face the obvi­ous logis­ti­cal and prac­ti­cal bar­ri­ers to make this essen­tial tran­si­tion.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion isn’t cheap and find­ing the nec­es­sary fund­ing to start a new project is always a chal­lenge, espe­cial­ly at a time when cen­tral gov­ern­ment is mak­ing deep cuts to pub­lic sec­tor agen­cies’ bud­gets.

Pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions face a dilem­ma. They know they must dig­i­tal­ly trans­form, but they have to do more with less while try­ing to meet new cus­tomer demands.

But pub­lic sec­tor agen­cies know that when resources are invest­ed in new, more effi­cient dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, short and long-term costs are reduced for most process­es.

Pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies may be chal­lenged by a vari­ety of polit­i­cal pres­sures, but the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inno­vate is game-chang­ing if they can get the fund­ing to work on new dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives.

What are the ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and what would a ful­ly dig­i­tal pub­lic sec­tor actu­al­ly look like?

Among the ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic sec­tor are bet­ter abil­i­ty to meet cus­tomer expec­ta­tions; increased cross-col­lab­o­ra­tion between depart­ments; high­er lev­els of inno­va­tion across agen­cies; quick­er strate­gic deci­sion-mak­ing; and reduced IT and oper­at­ing costs.

Swe­den and South Korea, two coun­tries at the fore­front of pub­lic sec­tor dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, pro­vide insights into how a dig­i­talised pub­lic sec­tor looks and how it can improve cit­i­zens’ lives.

Per Din­born, busi­ness strate­gist at Skelleft­eå munic­i­pal­i­ty, a Swedish pub­lic author­i­ty at the van­guard of the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion trend, offers an exam­ple of one of the ben­e­fits of pro­vid­ing a more nuanced, cit­i­zen-focused dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence.

If pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies can obtain inter­nal organ­i­sa­tion­al sup­port and the nec­es­sary fund­ing, they will be able to lay the ground­work for long-term trans­for­ma­tion

“One of the biggest chal­lenges for organ­i­sa­tions is to under­stand the needs of their users. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for local author­i­ties when it comes to rep­re­sent­ing the needs of their less vocal con­stituents. Their require­ments can often be obscured by the voic­es of oth­ers.

“Skelleft­eå was wor­ried that the voic­es of its less pow­er­ful res­i­dents were not being heard,” Mr Din­born con­tin­ues. “The munic­i­pal­i­ty set out to ensure that these peo­ple had an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty to influ­ence the local gov­ern­ment, and the dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of many of our process­es and the pro­duc­tion of a smart­phone app that allows peo­ple direct access to pub­lic ser­vants, proved to be a huge suc­cess. We became more cus­tomer fac­ing.”

A ful­ly dig­i­tal pub­lic sec­tor replaces tra­di­tion­al work silos, defined by organ­i­sa­tion­al depart­ments, func­tions and process­es, with a cit­i­zen-fac­ing, cit­i­zen-focused dig­i­tal inter­face.

Such an organ­i­sa­tion would be pre­dic­tive, not reac­tive, and would have a respon­sive retail-like rela­tion­ship with cit­i­zens, rather than a daunt­ing mono­lith­ic bureau­crat­ic expe­ri­ence.

If pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies can obtain inter­nal organ­i­sa­tion­al sup­port as well as the nec­es­sary fund­ing, they will be able to make improve­ments that will not only yield short-term oper­at­ing sav­ings, but also lay the ground­work for the long-term trans­for­ma­tion and suc­cess of pub­lic ser­vices.