Successful e governance via digitization initiatives

Successful e-Governance Via Digitization Initiatives

Bulk document scanning and digital conversion of documents is a major requirement for all e-governance projects

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Bulk document scanning and digital conversion of documents is a major requirement for all e-governance projects. With increasing use of the internet and digital devices, people all over the world now expect government information and services to be readily available online at low or no cost. Therefore governments at national, regional and local levels are now doing their best to meet citizens’ demands by converting all their critical documents into digital format by utilizing document scanning solutions. E-governance programs focus on providing better services for the citizens by ensuring efficiency, transparency, reliability and convenience.

New Study Highlights Changing Expectations of Citizens A new study by McKinsey & Company looks at the changing expectations of citizens and how governments are not able to meet those demands, mainly within the context of controlled public spending. Governments can save around $1 trillion through effective digitization of public services. However, they face challenges in terms of getting the right mechanisms in place so that proper change can take place. It is important to use the right mechanisms to get the right output.

McKinsey argues that if government looked at examples of excellence from all around the world in terms of how public sector organizations improved productivity, world governments could save up to $3.5 trillion by 2021. McKinsey has developed a Government Productivity Scope methodology to compare the efficiency and effectiveness of government expenditure across countries and sectors. Government expenditure has continuously increased in the recent years and they are struggling to keep up with the rising expectations of the citizens.

Their research in the United States found that the people’s satisfaction with major state services including healthcare facilities, schools, and transportation was less than half of that with most non-state providers such as utilities and banks. The private sector that is digitally enabled is directly competing with governments, making available practical alternatives with quite different delivery models. The research points out that digital and data are drivers of boosting productivity while also improving procurement, HR functions and finance.

While admitting that digitizing government alongside protecting citizens’

information is hugely challenging, the researchers also say that the potential rewards are huge.

•

Complete and efficient digitization can reduce costs significantly and improve efficiency.

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The smart use of data can ensure much improved outcomes in all areas and citizen satisfaction.

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Driving the Required Change McKinsey says that the following mechanisms must be in place to enable the required change.

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Clear focus on how to use technology to bring about improvements: automating manual

processes,

digitizing

citizen

interfaces,

sharing

useful

data,

and

integrating advanced analytics.

•

Implement the necessary enablers that support the government in their initiatives. These include the right strategy; governance and organization; leadership, culture and talent; and technology

To ensure successful implementation of a digital strategy, governments should do the following.

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Align with the top-level strategy of the administration in power at the time. For instance, McKinsey refers to Denmark’s ambitious digital strategy that focus on cutting costs. Another example is the United Arab Emirates that prioritized becoming a more customer-centric government. Governments may have to review and modify laws and regulations that obstruct digitization and data usage.

Any regulatory and legal barriers to digital transformation will have to be removed.

•

Governance and organization designed for cooperation: Governments should be able to overcome independent agency or department inertia and get the public sector

to act

transformation.

in a collaborative way results to ensure effective digital Huge

tension

between

the

government

and

individual

departments is inevitable. However, federal, state or local level governments should be able to set strategy and ensure effective delivery against that strategy.

McKinsey believes that this can be achieved in three different ways: firstly by being a strategy shaper and co-ordinator, secondly by being a centre of excellence, and thirdly by being a development and solution centre.

•

Committed leadership: Leadership is a very essential element in this programme.

The report states that the commitment of leaders is crucial and it is also important to take an active role in the planning of digital initiatives, reinforce priorities through frequent communication and closely monitor the progress of implementation. Having a good work culture is also important. Few governments have workplaces that reward risk-taking or create an environment that allows for experimentation and failures as well.

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Technology rollout: Most governments are burdened with old systems or they may resort to poor outsourcing agreements that makes innovation difficult.

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A

(800) 670 2809

remedy to his problem is the successful technology transformation that requires not only investment but also excellence on the part of the government.

Other Challenges ✓

Assuring quality: Ensuring the quality of digitally converted data is a challenge.

A minor error in any data could make the data non usable. Use of advanced technology and software can prevent errors and ensure quality.

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Accuracy and indexing: Digital documents should be properly indexed. This enables easy storing. Proper indexing also helps in quick retrieval and easy access of any important data. Checking accuracy against the master database and audit processes are some of the measures to ensure accuracy of indexing.

✓

Authenticity of critical data: Once all the government data is converted into digital format it is important to ensure the authenticity of all critical documents.

✓

Adherence and Compliance: Digitally converted government documents should be stored efficiently. It is important to ensure that these documents can be retrieved and rendered with consistent and predictable results in the future. Open standards like PDF/ A, which is an archiving and preserving standard should be used to assure standardization and consistency.

Converting physical records into digital or machine readable format helps to compute operation and enables research, predictive, quantitative and qualitative analysis for informed decision-making and proactive governance. It ensures improved quality of records, enables the public to access data quickly, and at the same time ensures secrecy and privacy of the government records. Document conversion of government projects can be efficiently and quickly completed with the support of document scanning services.

Care should be taken when making a choice of the vendor to partner with.

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