The Covid19 pandemic has posed great deal of challenges and opportunities for businesses in 2020-21. Organizations that were not digital are amongst the worst affected ones. Public sector agencies were also not untouched from the economic downturn created by the global crisis.
During global shutdowns, many government agencies providing critical resources and services faced numerous challenges to provide continuous delivery of services in the need of hour. Public sector was also expected to expedite digital transformation, not to update and improve quality of services but to deliver uninterrupted services to citizens during catastrophe.
The U.S. Department of Defence shifted about a million employees to remote jobs in a month. Ordinarily this would be a five year project. But during pandemic the governments have become agile, following less talk and more action work approach.
For digital operations, the agencies required a shift from in person to remote activities. They had to adopt and translate existing systems to digital platforms and processes overnight. These series of events triggered by the pandemic highlight that cloud and similar digital strategies are mission critical for all public agencies.
Although, the need to shift to digital platforms always existed as the citizens want digital user friendly experience. Moreover to gain the trust of the stakeholders, the agencies need to adopt to digital platforms. But this need was accelerated by the pandemic. Defence was already using the cutting edge technologies- Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning. Now it’s time for the rest of the public sector to leverage from the huge data and connected digital technologies.
Digital was one out of the many service delivery options but during present times, it seems the only way out. Now the national, regional and local governments are following a digital first mindset across all levels and departments. Things that seemed impossible to them, they are actively doing those such as virtual parliament sessions and much more. For instance the province of Nova Scotia in Canada has perpetrated to connect all its government services virtually to its citizens and business over the coming one year.
Agencies are also acknowledging the criticality of data and how it’s an under utilized asset in government. Hence data analytics is also coming to the forefront and providing insights about citizens, that are useful in implementing new policies and decision making by governments.
The legacy IT systems across agencies are being transformed, and not only it will save operational costs while optimizing efficiency but also enhance citizen satisfaction and trust, workforce experiences, attract new investors, better management of information and meet the needs of rapidly changing demographics.
According to a survey, 80% of government organizations are in the initial or developing digital transformation stages. Most government CIOs know the importance of digital government transformation but they struggle in implementing the digital methodology. Such agencies require a digital change agent to empower them to utilize the power of data and drive success, innovation and efficiency.