More and more however, the public sector is faced with increasing pressure to evolve and to offer more ‘customer-centric’ digital services that streamline citizen outcomes – especially after a year as turbulent as 2020, which brought into stark contrast citizen reliance on accessible government services.
As governments strive to balance priorities and the allocation of scarce resources, new approaches are needed. The public sector needs to be increasingly innovative and to work smarter to effectively respond to the complex challenges facing society now and into the future.
At a breakfast briefing hosted by Unisys and Dell Technologies in May 2021 over 20 executive level public sector digital transformation leaders from across New South Wales (NSW) government came together to discuss the challenges of operating the public realm, and to discuss key trends enabling improved digital service delivery in the NSW Public sector.
Below we explore these digital service delivery priorities and delve into why they’re crucial to the future of public sector innovation.
Know Your Customer
Companies of all types in both the private and public sectors are investing heavily in the digitisation of their business models. Driven by the changing consumer expectations that B2C digital juggernauts like Netflix, Amazon and Spotify have created, many companies are investing in reimagining their business; with customer experience top of mind.
Government services however are unique in that often there is no alternative – there is no option to shop elsewhere. This lack of competition has driven little impetus for change, and even less for innovation.
But with demographics shifting, citizen expectations growing, the aftershocks of the pandemic still being felt, and the resounding pressure always to do more with less, more and more public sector operators are realising the benefits of delivering citizen centric services - not just for the citizens themselves, but for their staff, for productivity levels, and for their bottom-line.
Determining who your customer is, understanding their needs and how they use and access your service, and customising - not standardising - experiences to unique user needs was identified as a key enabler of improved digital service delivery and of improved citizen experience.
As discussed at the executive briefing, one NSW Government department embarked on a journey some two years ago to do exactly this. By taking the time to understand their customer – their citizen end users, as well as their employees – they were prompted to develop a single account platform that better managed the end-to-end user journey.
This new platform gave their users ultimate control over their information and streamlined experience by removing forms and the need to re-input information, reduced delays and led to an anticipated reduction of 50 per cent in the number of calls being made to the department’s call centre – all by simply taking the time to better understand the customer journey.
Outcome, Not Process
Assessing a process holistically, from both the customer perspective and the backend user perspective facilitates greater understanding around who your customer really is, and what their journey looks like. By considering the journey through a user experience lens, digital service innovation then becomes outcome oriented, not process oriented.
While there is no right way to achieve this, the table unanimously agreed that ensuring you embed your users – whether the end user – the citizen, or those involved day-to-day in the process – your staff, within the fabric of any process change, and engaging them early to glean insight and feedback throughout is crucial.
Additionally, taking a phased approach and focusing on small wins was seen as crucial to the successful delivery of outcomes instead of the mere integration of more processes. As noted by a Senior Executive from a NSW Government department who had recently taken a simple and common problem – manual data input – and automated the processes, by starting small, in just one pocket of their agency, they were able to glean feedback, reassess, and refine before rolling out to other areas – saving both time and money, and crucially, keeping those impacted by change onboard.
The usefulness of this slow and steady versus big bang method was reiterated by Leon Sayers, Director Advisory at Unisys APAC at the event who noted; “government agencies need to focus on smaller programs of work that will enable savings and optimisation that can then self-fund and drive other programs of work.”
Ultimately these small wins help secure buyin for future change, and by taking the time - before embarking on process digitisation – to take a holistic view of your process and of the user journey your change becomes result driven, not processes driven.
Manage Change and Culture
Failure in digital transformation projects almost always comes down to a failure in securing buy-in and support from people. The digital element is simple – you just turn technology on. Laying the right foundation to drive change, and securing buy-in from both leadership and the teams impacted is where the big challenge lies.
Any change, whether an incremental change or a widespread digital transformation requires a comprehensive change management strategy and often too, a cultural realignment. In order for any initiative to succeed – digital or otherwise - you first need to win the hearts of the people.
Key strategies discussed around the table to help ensure seamless transformation focused on the importance of engaging teams in the transformation journey upfront and showcasing outcomes - or the ‘what’s in it for me’ element – as the simplest ways to convert teams early
For the department that had recently automated data input for example, while becoming cloud native and digitising manual forms has saved days of work monthly, for certain employee demographics the transition, and upheaval of long established ways of working seemed daunting. However, as discussed, by taking the time to ensure staff were equipped and prepared to work with new processes, emphasising that change was as a case-by-case pace, and by communicating wins like the removal of tedious and repetitive tasks, employees were quickly won over.
Similarly much of the discussion centred around the need for change champions; potentially even those most vocal about their resistance. By securing buy-in from these individuals, converting them early and positioning them as change champions amongst their peers you can ease the path for transformation.
Break Down Siloes and Encourage Collaboration
Digital transformation, digital service delivery and more generally, continuous improvement and innovation are now recognised as public sector imperatives to cater to the needs of citizens and meet expectations.
However, developing and delivering digital platforms and driving genuine innovation within government requires a vast investment in new platforms as well as a broad range of people, skills and experiences – an investment that due to competing priorities and limited budgets is often unattainable in the public realm.
Ultimately government departments across the state, country, and even the world are all working towards the same fundamental goal – delivering fit for purpose services to their citizens. By collaborating with subject matter experts like solution providers who bring global knowledge, as well as peers within the public space to determine common goals or challenges - we can begin breaking down silos to leverage off existing capabilities and the sharing of resources to save time, money and the duplication of effort.
As the executive table discussed however achieving this whole of government visibility is often easier said than done, with a need to first increase communication and appetite to work more closely together to drive innovative approaches, respond to complex challenges facing society and promote more positive outcomes for citizens.
