Hurdles in digital transformation for the public sector

GUEST BLOG: WRITTEN BY JON GITLIN, CONTENT STRATEGIST AT WORKATO

We recently worked with a key strategic partner, Spherica Business Solutions, a specialist provider of IT managed services, to better understand how public sector organisations are responding to the technological challenges brought on by the pandemic.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of respondents (nearly 4 in 5) claimed that they’re accelerating the pace of their digital transformation intiatives.

But these initiatives bring challenges, and as we discovered from the survey, the prospect of overcoming them isn’t so simple.

Let’s take a closer look at what the research tells us.

The challenges in executing digital transformation initiatives

There are several challenges that, according to respondents, impact their team and the wider business:

• Siloed platforms: 63% of respondents said that their apps lack a cohesive integration strategy
  
• Lack of technical skills: 63% of respondents said that their employees currently don’t have the skills to execute on their digital transformation initiatives
  
• Siloed processes: 61% of respondents told us that their workflows, like their platforms, largely operate in isolation 
  
• Legacy systems: 56% of respondents cited legacy systems as a hurdle they’d need to clear

While these challenges are no doubt daunting, the solution to overcoming them is clear to many:

As public sector organisations look to embrace automation, however, they’ll need to overcome a fresh set of challenges. You can read on to see what they are.

The obstacles that public sector organisations face in adopting automation

More than 50% of respondents weren’t aware of any automation technologies referenced in the survey. This included mainstream technologies like an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and robotic process automation (RPA).

Given this level of unawareness, it’s clear that there’ll need to be a significant amount of learning before organisations can decide how they approach automation.

As the report calls out, this education can be provided by a technology partner that’s familiar with the automation space and the unique challenges that public sector organizations face. Beyond education, these technology partners should play an active role in helping public sector organisations decide on their automation investments as the stakes for making poor decisions are too high.

Steve Jennings, the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Spherica, sums up the pressing need to be fully versed in automation technologies and leverage them effectively:

“Automation will prove a saviour in post-Covid recovery, but only if it is better understood, strategically planned and the right strategy is implemented.”

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