Achieving digital transformation has proven to be far from straightforward, as we have seen organisations of all types and sizes come up against roadblocks and experience complications. For governments, this task is especially challenging, particularly in light of increasing citizen expectations. But the pandemic has left the public sector with little choice.

 

It’s widely accepted that the private sector will always be leaps and bounds ahead of the public sector when it comes to IT. The private sector’s digital transformation has outpaced the public sector, which is no surprise given the resources and will to innovate that private companies often have.

 

It’s now the year 2022 and many local and federal governments are back in the early 2000s as far as their IT capability is concerned. With digital adoption being far easier to implement and deploy in recent years, the question remains – why is the public sector still so far behind?

 

 

While there has been great investment and planning involved in developing and maintaining Australia’s infrastructure, several factors contribute to the slower speed of digital adoption in the public sector. 

Public sector leaders are often faced with a lack of integration, cross-team communication, and ageing legacy IT services. This can make it tough to implement digital transformation and, ultimately, impactful change within the community. As government agencies are often tied to short-term objectives aligned to election terms, once you allow for design and investment sign-off, IT teams are operating in less than three-year cycles.  

Although the Australian government has strong digital initiatives and foundations in place, there are also added pressures in terms of budgetary restraints, skills shortages, lack of resources, and resistance to change. According to McKinsey, applying digital tools to the government’s citizen-facing activity and back-office support has the potential to generate annual efficiency gains of four to 15%. This digitisation also has the potential to inform policymaking and increase revenues through advanced analytics. 

The barriers to digital transformation in the public sector haven’t changed much in the last few years, but the drivers for transformation have increased significantly, especially since the onset of the pandemic.

Three South Australian councils doing it right

Public sector organisations have seen huge success in transforming their IT infrastructure and incorporating digital technologies to improve workflow and processes. 

In 2018, Freshworks formed a partnership with three large metropolitan councils based in Adelaide, the Cities of Charles Sturt (CCS), Marion (COM), and Port Adelaide Enfield (PAE), all with a common goal of contributing effectively to their communities. To align IT infrastructure and increase both collaboration and knowledge-sharing across business functions, the councils of CCS, COM, and PAE replaced their ageing legacy IT systems with Freshservice, Freshworks’ modern and intuitive IT service management (ITSM). Using Freshservice, the three councils were able to streamline internal operations and deliver an engaging and award-winning employee experience. 

Since the implementation, the IT team has consistently received positive feedback from employees, largely due to the ease of raising IT requests and subsequent status tracking. Additionally, the team experienced a 10% decrease in phone calls as the comprehensive knowledge base helps employees to find resolutions at ease without contacting IT. They also successfully migrated over 1,500 IT assets, changing the way they work and manage assets. IT teams across the councils can now review and resolve tickets regardless of which council they belong to,  facilitating greater knowledge sharing across teams.

Looking ahead

In a world where digital platforms have taken the front seat, agencies must constantly advance their IT services to serve and meet the needs of citizens. There is no doubt that governments can generate powerful outcomes when digital adoption is implemented properly. Making smart investments in IT tools and services will enable government agencies to deliver more efficient, secure, responsive, and human-centric services, as well as being a driver for economic growth. 

Successfully accelerating public sector digital transformation relies on governments not only bridging the digital skills gaps but also adopting modern, practical and fiscally responsible solutions that promote better workflow. Low-code or no-code platforms continue to innovate and are user-friendly so you don’t need to be an engineer to rebuild a process or a workflow.