How digital disruption is changing the way the public sector operates
Digital disruptors are reshaping entire industries and our needs are evolving with them. Things that used to be considered a plus several years ago (like mobile apps) have now become a basic service expected from almost any business. This shift does not only impact the private sector, citizens now expect the same level of service from governments that they receive from retail, telcos and banks.
This means the public sector needs to be thinking differently about the way they interact with citizens and business. The public sector must be able to innovate, adapt and quickly respond. To do this they need to create an environment where employees are empowered to take intelligent risks that will bring innovative solutions to the forefront and benefit organizations as well as citizens.
But how does the public sector become more agile, and take advantage of technology to truly innovate? In the UK, London Borough of Harrow has been working through its Access Harrow program to provide citizens with better access to council services and incorporate greater automation across channels, including telephone, paper and web. In Canada, BC Justice has released Canada’s first online tribunal - one of the first of its kind globally. The work at the Ministry of Justice has received global interest, with experts and CIOs from United Kingdom, Singapore, and Australia visiting British Columbia to understand how the system was developed and how the lessons learned might be applied in their jurisdictions.
For more great examples of innovation check out our on-demand webcast Building a digital government: Embracing the art of the possible which took place earlier this year.
In a time of such seismic change, both for clients and ourselves, the fact remains: business transformation is often complex and usually incredibly difficult. Technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, pressuring organizations to keep up or risk being left behind. Two of the main challenges that organizations face today are not only to put digital transformation on their roadmap but also to ensure that they have the agility to deploy new technologies before they become obsolete. Another key challenge is adopting a technology without changing mindsets, or fostering new ways of working on old organizational structures.
At PwC, we believe that true transformation comes from leveraging the power of perspective. Every major challenge has three critically important lenses that must be aligned in order to help usher us into true innovation and disruption - the Business, Experience and Technology lenses (BXT). By breaking down silos and focusing outside in - being citizen and business centric first and looking holistically at challenges, the public sector will be able to drive innovation and transform.
Through our Digital Experience centres, located in cities around the world we fuel innovation through co-creation; where we go beyond problem solving, by working together to bring ideas to life that don’t exist today. Ideas, that will bring real value to citizens and business.
A serious issue with innovation and disruption however is that programs can take months to budget for and build, and are made irrelevant before they even launch by a sudden shift in conditions - like a change in government. By bringing the right people together, and through rapid prototyping we create meaningful experiences that lead to solutions that can be implemented quickly and efficiently.
We’re now proud to inaugurate our brand new PwC Digital Experience Centre in Gatineau, QC. This centre, which opened on November 28th, 2016, will be home to creative directors, strategists, designers and engineers, collaborating in person or virtually from across the country to help our clients solve their most important, and complex challenges in the digital era. Bringing our client’s vision to reality.
With digital and technological disruptors fundamentally changing how the public sector needs to operate, staying ahead of the curve will be more important than ever.
Now I have a question for you, what digital disruptions do you think will most impact your industry in the next five years?
VP Sales Tr3Dent
8yGreat perspectives John! Thank you for sharing. Have you considered how virtualizing mobile applications to the Cloud could help to jump the curve on Public Sector productivity while delivering "intelligence grade" security? The category is called Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI) and would love to present what VMI might mean to PwC's Public Sector clients.
Delivery Executive | Digital Transformation | Portfolio Planning, PMOs and Program Management
8yThis is a thought provoking article which forces us to step back and look at the larger picture about why Governments today may not able to take full advantage of the digital revolutions/ disruptions in the way non-Government entities are. There are broadly three reasons why digital disruption/ revolution initiatives have comparatively more success in the private sector. First, it is vital for their survival; Second, there is organization commitment and an environment which encourages risk taking; and third, clear ownership of the initiative. Digital revolution may not be vital for a Government's survival per se but for Digital revolution to take wings in the Government, it is important that the other two factors are taken care of. There is a strong need to isolate (as much as possible) organization commitment (to digital initiatives in this case) from leadership changes. Secondly, the article mentions about empowering employees to take intelligent risks. That type of ownership towards risks can happen only when such an environment is fostered including rewarding appropriately. Next, let's talk about processes and technology. As you rightly said, time is of essence and we cannot wait for Government transformations (due to digital disruptions or otherwise) to complete before citizen experiences are made world class! Hence, it is important that transformation initiatives of Government (esp. digital/ technology led) and citizen experiences are 'loosely coupled'. The Government is in the process of implementing the shared services organization which currently focuses primarily on ICT. Next could be sharing of processes or sharing of partial process lifecycles (Process-as-a-service) which are common across services/ departments. As that happens, Government as we know it will undergo a sea change. Organization structures will have to be relooked at and so will be delegation of powers etc. But that’s a discussion for another time. As the core technologies and platforms of Departments are finalized, we should aim at revolutionizing citizen experiences- Service by Service. Pick any one citizen service, evaluate the service lifecycle and process inter-linkages/ dependencies, evaluate how the latest digital revolutions can be leveraged to make service delivery better, identify change management needs, run use cases followed by a pilot and then go-live! The PwC Digital Experience Centre can take lead in this regard by showcasing Proof of Concepts of implementing new-age technologies in selected Government processes and services. The Centre can showcase how concepts like IoT, process sharing/ process-as-a-service can be implemented in Government and the impact thereof. These are some thoughts which immediately came to mind after reading the article.
Senior Advisor | Strategist | Public Sector Executive
8yGreat article. Hurdle that I see in the public sector, in Ottawa, will be to break away from the "if you build it, they will come" mentality.
International Business Development Executive | Optimizing Performance, Increasing Growth, Generating Revenue
8yIn my my research on digital marketing I found a strong inclination towards data-centric rather than customer-centric when it comes to digital. I am curious as to how the public sector will integrate social/welfare with digital?