When we asked respondents to describe the impact on their domain of digital technologies, they overwhelmingly told us that these technologies indeed had a major impact: Three-fourths of all the respondents said digital technologies are disrupting the public sector. At the same time, 96 percent characterized its effects on their specific domain as significant.

Genuinely transforming the government using digital technologies will be a long journey. This report gives you an insight into that complex journey and the characteristics which determine a more digitally mature organization that allows you to map your current position.

This section outlines some of the challenges that the public sector faces and offers some valuable advice on addressing these barriers, which comes from a range of public-sector organizations around the world:

Characteristics of a Government That’s Digitally Maturing

The following characteristics – which include progression measures along the digital maturity scale – are those that the most digitally mature organizations have in common. They can help you assess your government’s progress in adopting digital technologies and evaluate the impact it is having.

● Leadership by example
● Put good data to work
● Creative use of data and analytics
● Safety-net service delivery
● Process optimization
● The use of big data
● Enabling the right people to act
● Open data and interoperability
● The use of social media
● Using data to measure success
● Digital technologies that deliver results
● Involving the full workforce
● An awareness of security issues

To progress along the digital maturity scale, digital leaders must create a shared understanding of digital innovation and its potential across their organizations.

Unique challenges to digitalization in the public sector:

• Growing pressure on public finances. This increases the pressure on public bodies to ensure that their services are delivered as efficiently as possible and to identify and introduce new ways of working to achieve this.
• A workforce that is disproportionately made up of people with low digital skills.
• Organizational maturity levels. Most respondents place their organization between levels 1 and 3 – i.e., immature. Which in turn affect systems and processes that have been and are capable of being enacted.

Conclusion

Digital transformation has become a global imperative. Research consistently shows that the countries that will thrive in the digital economy are those that are digitally advanced and those embracing e-government software solutions. While we are seeing a growing number of digitally savvy public-sector organizations, most governments globally are only just beginning their digital transformations.

The move towards a digital economy is underpinned by the next step in strategic planning and digital marketing. This entails careful planning by your organization to anticipate and respond to future needs and challenges.

Informatics offers e-government software solutions that can greatly help in an organization’s journey towards digital transformation. Contact us today to find out more!

Written by Daniele Paoletti