publive-image

As digital transformation is revolutionizing every industry, it’s also creating major waves in government. In the government sector, digital transformation meaning has extended beyond to solve traditional issues with a shift to online services and the digitalization of physical procedures. Today, governments are leveraging digital technology to advance their citizens lives, transactions, and interactions that optimize digital and mobile technologies to deliver transformation.

Aside from, the state and local CIOs face increasing pressure to deliver the digital strategy in several ways. According to the 2018 National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) state CIO survey that summarizes the evolution of digital transformation, “State leaders aspire to have seamless citizen transactions, increase engagements, provide mobile services, establish common online identities, and enable crowdsourcing and digital assistants to help navigate services.”

Additionally, a Deloitte study report on states and local government officials also indicate a declination over digital transformation. The study found that 73 percent of local and state government officials believed their organization’s digital capabilities were seating behind in comparison to the private sector organizations.

To shift towards digital transformation, states seek their CIOs drive state-of-the-art approach to deliver citizen services, create a healthier relationship with citizens and direct a clear path to the future.

Steps to Accelerate Digital Transformation

Rock Regan, Managing Director, State/Local Government and Education at Pitney Bowes, and a former CIO for the state of Connecticut and former president of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers suggests 10 steps for state and local CIOs to accelerate digital transformation.

  • Focus on data, its quality and how it flows across the organization and to its citizens and stakeholders.
  • Integrate real-time and historical data to become predictive, not reactive.
  • Align data strategy with organizational priorities and identify key areas for improvement with data — forecasting crime, pressures on infrastructure, managing environmental change, establishing demographic change.
  • Enable inter-agency collaboration and secure data sharing. Breaking down silos makes it possible to realize benefits that come with using data to tie assets together.
  • Ensure management systems are in place to interpret and optimize data.
  • Develop processes to harness insight from citizen interactions.
  • Make it a priority to remove barriers to progress, such as an inability to connect with stakeholders across their preferred channels.
  • Plan and execute a clear vision for the future and communicate progress. Communicate with a sense of urgency — set milestones and deadlines, execute exceptional project management.
  • Invest in technologies, enabling them to scale, and partner where appropriate.
  • Deepen worker digital skills.

Digital Transformation Trends Globally

However, not all states are lag the digital transformation. Several are making major treads, as they’re increasingly compelling real, sustainable, life-improving changes for citizens with having a detailed, visionary data strategy with quantifiable goals. These avant-garde state organizations also leverage data management and analytics with using data-driven decision-making approach. They also anticipate precise outcomes.

Many cities worldwide are also making their shift towards digital transformation. More than 1,000 smart cities projects are underway globally, according to a Deloitte report. For transformation, these cities are utilizing connected devices to garner data about a specific area and then process and assess it to advance a city’s infrastructure.

For instance, Sydney, Australia, which has set a vision that it calls “a green, global and connected Sydney” by 2030. With this plan, the city will integrate all its assets and infrastructure information. As reports noted, the city previously had over 60 separately maintained sources of data and has linked them into a single, easy to use, geotagged solution with simplified processes for city staff, contractors and service delivery teams. The initiative results in better planning, and quicker responses to customer service requests and creates an intelligent community.

In the same line of digital transformation, Brindisi, an Italian port city, leverages mapping technology to display information about environmental protection, zoning and authorizing limitations for government and individual properties. According to Teodoro Indini, an architectural official with the community of Brindisi, “Brindisi is a small city, but there are a number of issues that we have to deal with around environmental protection, landscaping, and hydrology.” To create maps for visual analysis, Brindisi collects internal and external data and utilizes software to consolidate it.

Now, it will be interesting to see how this trend evolves in the coming years and how it will impact cities and their citizens.