To succeed at digital, governments need new digital capabilities
Author: Yves Vanderbeken
Research from the OECD and others indicates that governments are generally late in adopting technology. Traditionally, the public sector lags private businesses in adopting the latest technologies for innovating service delivery. In this high-paced world of technology advancements, the ability to innovate comes down to attracting the right talent and capabilities. In this way, the public sector can gain the insights and experience needed to improve services for their citizens.
Often, new capabilities are injected to increase efficiency and process the service requests of citizens. But with many new technologies such AI advancing fast, few agencies are looking to automate the decision process and free up time from the civil servants to become expert workers. So bringing in new capabilities to work with the latest technologies is a better driver to improve efficiency overall than only looking at reducing processing time.
Showing digital leadership
Governments will only be truly successful in their digital transformation if they introduce digital capabilities as a combination of people, process, governance and technology. Only this holistic approach will result in making public services easier to request. At the end, the citizen services need to be more adaptable, personalized and proactive in nature, not only the back office of IT systems. Ultimately, digital transformation in the public sector needs to be about the citizen.
Driving change means having a good vision and strategy to lead the transformation program. That is no different in digital transformation. Public-sector leaders needs to be aware of the possibilities and advances in technology before they can incorporate them in the execution strategy. This means, government leadership needs a new set of capabilities that include:
- Digital business strategy
- Digital business leadership
- Digital governance
- Business engagement and alignment
- Digital innovation
- Business model agility and evolution
- Business process digitization and reinvention
Once public-sector leaders have mastered these capabilities, IT can attract the new capabilities needed to tackle such technologies as:
- Digital technology architecture and modular IT platforms
- Advanced Analytics and information asset management
- Cloud
- Digital enterprise information architecture
- Cybersecurity and risk management
- Vendor management
Gaining support at all levels
Let’s not forget that success requires more than simply executing a good strategy. Because civil servants run their operations for a long time, it’s important to stay connected with all stakeholders involved. How can leadership gain the continuous support needed to change? Here are several possible approaches:
- Play to your strengths: Remember that many civil servants work for more than just a paycheck. They also want to make a positive impact on society. To tap into this, explain how developing new digital capabilities can help your people help citizens.
- Bring in an innovation coach: Even if you hire a data scientist today, they might not be fully trained and up to speed for a year or even two. It’s a long cycle, so do it in steps. Consider contracting a third-party expert in innovation to kick-start the process at the agency.
- Communicate enthusiasm: Tell your staff how developing new digital capabilities can improve their jobs and help them contribute more to society and its citizens. Make your staff part of the change and encourage them to take ownership of your agency’s digital projects. Never stop sharing the vision and debating how all can contribute to achieving the digital transformation.
- Celebrate small successes: Digital Transformation can take a long time. Like using Agile techniques, changes can be introduced in small steps. It is important to stop and pause at every step of the journey and enjoy what improvements the citizens are now enjoying as another (small) step was delivered. It’s a small step for government, but a big step for citizen service improvement.
These approaches can be mixed and matched. For example, you might decide to hire a coach while also improving your communications. Experiment and discover what works for you. Given the public sector’s urgent need for new digital capabilities, the only real mistake would be to do nothing.
About the author
Yves Vanderbeken is DXC Technology’s chief technologist in Belgium. In his role, Yves focuses on delivering innovative approaches to digital services transformation, deriving public and business value from data, and helping governments realize benefits from consolidated platforms and shared services in their drive toward Everything as a Service.