Public services versus public’s wants and needs
In this day and age, citizens are used to being helped instantly and in a personalized manner whenever they have a question or request. They hold the same expectations while in contact with the public sector, unaware the services they encounter are often provided by more than one organization. The complexity of the technological cooperation of these domains regularly results in less streamlined services for citizens. The cause is clear: underlying systems from different domains do not interact sufficiently, making it difficult to offer citizen-centric services and customized products. This is where the services of the public sector do not always match the public’s wants and needs. One of the biggest constraints are the generally old systems from several domains that contribute to the process. When these systems work in silos, they are incapable to collaborate and exchange data; a necessity to optimize the citizen-centric approach. It takes a lot of time, effort and investments to replace these systems. And so, it is needed (and most certainly possible) to resolve this differently, dealing with the incapability to provide citizen-centric processes, while increasing efficiency. Ultimately, nobody wants to enter or handle the same information multiple times in the same process.
Dive deeper into the wants and needs of citizens
More reasons for increased efficiency
Citizens should be put in first place when considering the objectives of the public sector. Nonetheless, there are more reasons why the need for efficiency exists. We sum up some of the challenges the public sector must deal with:
- The difficulty to work within budget while there is an urgency to reduce costs.
- The complexity of laws and regulations causing IT-projects to fail.
- The significant costs companies must incur to meet the information obligations and deliver information every time, on time.
- The initiatives companies and citizens want to undertake, running into many rules and regulations in different places they need to comply to. This is not transparent and makes it very hard to fulfill these obligations.
- The postponement of ideas for more efficient structures, processes or cooperation between domains, because they cannot be implemented due to the current IT-infrastructure and silos.
Read more about the need for transparency in policy making
Making room for exceptions
So, why is it a challenge for public organizations to meet the public’s wants and needs? For starters, many organizations and domains in the public sector rely on old systems and legacy. These legacy technologies may lead to increases in manual work compared to modern systems, resulting in more waiting time for citizens. In the meanwhile, used silos often are not able to support various situations and may be inflexible when needs change. This means there is no time or capacity to make room for exceptions. And that is precisely what is needed to offer truly citizen-centric products. By establishing a more integrated approach of public services with the involved organizations and domains, it is possible to offer citizens a more personal service. One of the conditions for a suitable solution is hyper-efficiency. More time can then be spent in serving people and a central service concept can be accomplished, no matter how many independent organizations are involved. Silos may still exist, but citizens are no longer exposed to their presence. All they experience is the kind of tailored service that meets their demands.
The solution: hyperautomation in the public sector
That sounds simple, but how do you apply this hyper-efficiency in practice? To summarize it in one word: hyperautomation. In automation, technology is used to automate tasks once manually performed by humans. When zooming in on hyperautomation, advanced technologies are incorporated, and tools are combined. This constitutes end-to-end automation in which the power of multiple technologies is harnessed. These technologies may include dynamic case management, robotic process automation and orchestration. It is required to let automation replace the repetitive human factor in processes. Hyperautomation refers to all aspects that may be automated, as well as the finesse of the automation itself. According to Gartner this may be explained by the following flow: discover, analyze, design, automate, measure, monitor, reassess. Hyperautomation makes it possible to automate any repetitive task executed by humans, even across silos, domains and organizations. All you need is an intelligent automation platform making all this (and more) possible.
The road towards hyperautomation
As we concluded earlier on, it is arbitrary, too expensive and time-consuming to replace all legacy with new systems. After all, valuable data is still part of these old systems, they are reliable and very difficult to replace. What you do need, is a layer on top of legacy systems. A platform orchestrating systems, technologies and processes to bring together valuable data, optimize customer journeys and ensure end-to-end compliance. Across silos, domains and organizations in the public sector. This is the way to personally assist citizens, for instance through virtual advisors, virtual assistants, intelligent forms or responsive 360° citizen portals.
Personalized service and fiscal sustainability
An example of such personalized service is the Multi Tax Solution which was developed on the Be Informed intelligent automation platform in cooperation with BearingPoint Caribbean. It boosts the performance of the Tax Administration. With the solution, compliance is increased, and the Tax Administration is now able to offer personalized services at considerably lower costs. Some other effects are:
- Flexibility to manage changes in tax regulations
- Sustainable advancements in tax revenues
Read more about the Multi Tax Solution
What is up next?
Today we discussed our view on the public sector from the perspective of public service integration, focusing on the need for efficiency and hyperautomation. Next week we will share a use case on this subject to walk through our recommendations in practice. Stay tuned by signing up below or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to stay in the loop at all times.
