The South African government could cut administrative costs by as much as 15% to 20% if it were to access information securely and process documents more efficiently, based on effective document process optimisation.
Those results are based on the efficiency spike expected in the European Union by a drive towards digital service delivery where public sectors CIOs, like their South African counterparts, still face numerous challenges.
“Coleman-Parkes was engaged by Ricoh Europe to study the market and found that public sector CIOs should have a background in marketing and expertise in technology, as well as business-critical process expertise,” says Richard Pinker, MD of Ricoh SA. “Without those attributes their effort is severely hampered.
“European respondents to the study are overwhelmingly positive (90%) that their CIOs are equipped to drive digital transformation of public service delivery the same may not necessarily be true of South African public servants where we have had several service delivery-related protests. Yet the fundamentals to achieving it and the potential benefits remain equal across continents.”
In other instances there are many parallels. In spite of the optimism and support for today’s CIO, the study shows that over two thirds (68%) of European public sector organisations are far from ready for digital transformation.
The possible reasons for the slow pace of change are revealed as public sector leaders say that while their CIOs are most empowered to drive change in the critical areas of financial management, customer engagement and data and business intelligence, just 9% are able to change business critical processes.
In addition, just 29% consider change management as a key CIO attribute, which is essential to introduce new ways of working and to lead the public sector into the digital era.
“It is clear that, even where the will exists to effect public service delivery changes and usher in an era of digital communications between government and its citizens, there is often no way to get it done,” says Pinker.
“The problem that European civil servant CIOs face is juggling a balance of technology to connect with citizens versus the business processes that support the interactions.
“Those processes feature in the daily interactions between public servants and citizens and if they are fully optimised and implemented with effective change management programmes CIOs will benefit from better knowledge sharing, more knowledge sharing, more agile processes and the ability to accelerate services for citizens.”
In Europe, CIOs have the support of their peers as they negotiate the path to digital service delivery and they have put the citizens’ needs at the top of their agendas. The rewards they face are high: the European Union could save as much as €100-billion per year and e-government can reduce the costs of administration by 15% to 20%.
“Similar results could be achieved in South Africa where the sector could access information securely and process documents more efficiently with effective document process optimisation to ensure best-in-class service delivery to citizens,” says Pinker.