The importance of digitalisation of the economy particularly in the State sector has been under discussion for a few years now. The National People’s Power (NPP) too has emphasised its importance before and after the election. Arrangements are under way to set up a Ministry and other State institutions and also the appointment of professionals to head these institutions.
Digital Policy Document
In the NPP’s Digital Policy Document published in August 2024, “Implementing rapid digitisation programs for all Government institutions to increase efficiency, transparency and make them paperless” is stated as a major goal under the Transparent and Efficient Governance section. This is one of the major goals among the eleven or so other goals stated under different subheadings. However, the author feels that the word ‘digitalisation’ is more appropriate than the term ‘digitisation’ in the context stated in the document.
While Digitisation refers to converting analog data into a digital format, digitalisation involves the integration of digital technologies into business operations to optimise processes, enhance customer experience and drive innovation.
Digitisation serves as a prerequisite to Digitalisation which incorporates the infusion of digital products or services into the organisation’s processes which will result in Digital Transformation. Digital Transformation represents the innovative restructuring of organisations, greater customer satisfaction and greater value addition to the business, originated from digital diffusion. This overall process is known as the Pyramid of Digital Transformation.
Prerequisites
While there are many policies, procedural and institutional matters that need to be discussed, formulated, established and implemented to ensure a successful and sustainable journey of digital transformation at national level. This article attempts to emphasise some critically important prerequisites necessary to successfully implement digitalisation of any government process or service.
It is essential to conduct Business Process Reengineering (BPR) for any process or service that is to be digitalised. This has to be done prior to applying digital transformation tools. We have seen many failures in the past in automation processes and services attempted without proper business process analysis. It is typical that many organisations place undue emphasis on adopting new technologies to ‘go digital’ rather than focusing on the actual transformation through a proper analysis of the subject processes that need to be improved and documented prior to applying digital tools.
Capacity and benefits
Obviously, the improvements must take into account the capacity and benefits that digital tools can provide to improve reliability and user-friendliness that can be shared with the customer.
Business processes and the documents, people and systems linked to them are at the heart of how every organisation operates. But the fact is that most businesses are wildly inefficient. Paperwork and manual tasks tie up employee’s time, poorly managed information kills productivity, every department has its own system to store data and the list goes on. This often leads to delays, inaccuracies, and widespread deviation where work happens differently every time. As a result, citizens are dissatisfied and complain about inefficiency and delays in availing the required services.
The title of this article, Digital transformation: Avoid paving the cow path was coined intentionally to emphasise the importance of Business Process Reengineering that needs to be carried out prior to any digitalisation as its relevance has been largely ignored. Most of the processes we use in our Government offices are ancient and some of them still resemble colonial era practices. These processes need to be revamped or reengineered to incorporate today’s technology and customer expectations, productivity and reliability expected, reduce employee discontent and provide a respectful image about the organisation.
For those who are not yet familiar with the phrase involving the ‘cow path’, let me shed some light on it. This phrase refers to the common practice of using new software to automate old and inefficient business processes. The emphasis to avoid recurrence of such practices and to take time to analyse business processes critically, to suggest improvements to be more productive and being customer-friendly which adds more value to the business.
Improvement needs to be discussed and agreed to by all stakeholders. These discussions are usually held by the process owners (who are responsible to implement the process) with recipients of their service (customers), other stakeholders and experts from the organisation’s digitalisation initiatives from both the IT and BPE Departments.
Business Process Reengineering
Business Process Reengineering thus carried out provides recommendations to restructure the process and any new technology properly scoped and prioritised. These discussions between process owners, subject matter experts, digitalisation experts, customers and other stakeholders need to be conducted in a professional and structured manner. These discussions need to be supported by the top management and also necessary training for personnel should be provided. There are many useful management techniques involved in Business Process Engineering such as data analysis techniques, customer survey, benchmarking, flowcharting, process mapping, SWOT analysis and cost-benefit analysis. It is essential to provide resources and training to employees to participate in the digital transformation initiative. All State sector employees should have adequate awareness of the digital transformation initiative of the Government and should be motivated to provide their support.
The change should be managed by assigned change managers or change champions at the operational and executive level. The higher management should always support the initiative, monitor the progress and provide support to sustain the momentum. The fear of using new technology should be tackled appropriately. As the transformation effort takes place, there should be continuous and cordial dialogue between employees and the organisation. Feeedback from employees about the transformation should be regularly solicited, duly analysed and action taken.
Primary benefits
The primary benefits of digitalisation range from increased operational efficiency and improved employee productivity. Digitalisation also reduces costs associated with physical document management, manual processes and travel. In terms of intangible benefits, the digitalisation of business processes optimises customer satisfaction and information management.
Organisations equipped with an agile digital infrastructure can swiftly adapt to changes in the environment, leading to improved performance and customer satisfaction. Like any other management initiative involving major structural changes on how the business is carried out, digital transformation too should be subject to continuous improvement through customer feedback and incorporation of changes in technology.
Digital infrastructure is the foundation of any connected business. It enables success, powers transformation and connects people around the world. It is, therefore, mandatory for the Government to provide such infrastructure facilities to its citizens with appropriate bandwidth, reliability and at reasonable cost for digital transformation to succeed.
Dr. Gamini Padmaperuma is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Honorary Fellow Member of IESL, former Director, Academic Affairs at Saegis Campus and Senior Lecturer at OUSL.
He holds a PhD from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
