Public Sector Digital Transformation: Enhancing Efficiency and Service Delivery

Public sector digital transformation refers to digitizing government services to meet citizens’ expectations, improve efficiency, lower costs, and increase transparency. Individuals appreciate the speed and ease of using digital services, and their expectations for how they will interact with government services are changing. Governments can satisfy those demands and benefit from digitization in other ways. However, challenges like security and privacy, budget constraints, and legacy systems make it essential to consider your digital transformation strategy carefully. 

Discover why public sector digital transformation is essential for the government, how to address the challenges of digitalization, and tips for implementing a digital transformation strategy within your organization. 

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What is public sector digital transformation?

Public sector digital transformation is the process of embracing emerging technologies and implementing them into government services to improve efficiency and resiliency and address the desires of the population that the organization serves.

Governments can use digital transformation and optimization to add value to government services while making things easier for government employees and citizens seeking services. For example, a couple who plans to marry could apply for a marriage license, apply to change names, and manage changes to government identification like a driver’s license and social security card through a single online portal or app. This would be much simpler than visiting multiple agencies and repeatedly providing the same documents. 

Why is digital transformation important for the government?

Public sector digital transformation is important for the government because it builds more efficient, cost-effective systems, creates resiliency, and leads to happier, more satisfied individuals using government services. Digital transformation can also provide accessibility for those with difficulty contacting government offices in person. Take a look at these key points in more detail:

• A simplified user experience: As people become increasingly accustomed to accomplishing tasks such as working or shopping online with digital tools, many have gradually come to expect the same convenience and access from their government services. The public sector’s digital transformation is essential because it benefits citizens, such as ease of access and round-the-clock customer service. 

• Efficient systems: Digital transformation helps create more efficient systems by reducing repetitive tasks and freeing employees’ time to work on other initiatives. Instead of manually processing paperwork and requests, government employees can focus on providing better experiences for individuals or improving their organizations’ processes in other ways. 

• Cost-effectiveness: By creating more efficient systems, digital transformation can reduce labor costs and cut waste. Easy to replicate, low-code systems can allow public servants to customize the user interface to their specific service needs without extensive coding and development costs. 

• Resiliency: Digital transformation can improve resiliency in the face of an unforeseen future. For example, digital services were crucial in managing the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Key components of government digital transformation

You must consider various factors when planning a digital transformation strategy for your organization. Still, a few hallmarks of a successful strategy include connected digital infrastructure, data to inform your decision-making process, and a person-first design approach that anticipates how users will interact with your services.

• Digital infrastructure and connectivity: Public sector digital transformation must include technology that integrates services across departments from an individual’s perspective while connecting to technology like data capture and the Internet of Things (IoT) to add integrated functionality. 

• Data-driven decision-making: Digital technology can collect diverse data that the government can use to make the digital transformation more intuitive and responsive to citizens' needs. 

• Person-first services and user experience: Designing the digital transformation around how people use and experience government services is essential for better customer service.

Case studies of successful public sector digital transformation

You can find many examples of how government organizations and agencies are using digital transformation strategies to help meet their organization's goals. Take a look at a few.

Rhode Island unemployment insurance: During the pandemic, Rhode Island unemployment insurance offices faced an unprecedented number of claims. It implemented cloud technology to manage its call center. In addition to increasing the number of calls it was able to handle, it also offered chatbots and a tracker so residents could monitor how long it would take to receive services [1].  

US Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC): The TATRC is an organization that helps make medical care available to soldiers in battle, in disaster areas, and in dangerous areas where medical help is difficult to access. Partnering with Deloitte and using Amazon Web Services, the TATRC built an application to support critical care remotely. At the beginning of the pandemic, the application was able to provide mission support to 28 separate missions located in different states and across different regions [2].

Person-focused services at VA.gov: VA.gov is a website dedicated to helping veterans and their dependents access services since 2015. The developers at VA.gov work in iterative cycles that offer continuous improvement to the website as part of a digital transformation strategy by the Veterans Affairs department. To facilitate this cycle of development, the dev team gathers feedback from veterans to build a customer-facing product that answers veterans’ needs and provides them with a coherent digital solution for accessing services [3].  

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Overcoming challenges in digital transformation

In the modern world, many government agencies understand the need for a robust public sector digital transformation. Despite this, agencies face several challenges to implementation, including the security and privacy concerns inherent in digital services, the need to see a return on investment to justify initiatives, and the challenges of modernizing systems from the bottom up. 

Security and privacy concerns

Using technology to create digital solutions will increase cybersecurity risks, including exposing customer information or government data. At the same time, people must trust their government, including their government systems. To overcome this issue, government agencies can follow federal regulations to help shield individuals from potential identity theft, harassment, fraud, or other forms of harm. 

Legacy system integration

The legacy systems and processes within government were built in the past for the modern technology of the time. To modernize and build a customer-forward digital system, you need to think about the front end of an application, or how the customer will ultimately interact with the system. This poses a challenge because, many times, digital transformation efforts don’t reach the underlying systems in a meaningful way to create modern change. To address this, your organization can consider how technology like artificial intelligence and cloud computing may improve the underlying systems of government, not just the end-user experience. 

Competing priorities

Government organizations face many competing priorities. Therefore, it’s important to demonstrate the value of any initiative, including digital transformation efforts. One way to overcome this challenge is by prioritizing cost-effective transformation strategies that can aid you in gathering evidence of return on investment. This can help you develop buy-in from company stakeholders and potentially save money and other resources so you may begin other, more expensive or resource-heavy initiatives. 

How to implement digital transformation

Public sector digital transformation often includes big goals, but you can follow these tips to help make your implementation more manageable: 

Create low-code solutions: Government agencies compete with the private sector for talented IT professionals who can build digital systems. By creating low-code solutions, organizations can train their current employees to support digital services without burdening the IT department. 

Get the message out: When your agency develops new solutions or services for its constituents, it’s important to communicate that with stakeholders to demonstrate their value and encourage more users. 

Incorporate feedback: Building a system that works for your agency requires you to communicate with all individuals who will interact with that system to gather feedback, answer questions, and make adjustments for better use.

Start small and iterate: When you begin a digital transformation, you can look for places where you might get significant results without much time or financial investment. These small wins can help you build momentum and provide data to inform decision-making about your next steps. 

Getting started with Coursera

Public sector digital transformation is an important part of modernizing governmental services for efficient and cost-effective services that meet the expectations of people who need them. You can start training your employees for digital transformation with the resources available on Coursera.

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