Top five digital opportunities for the public sector

Digitizing public services can be a game changer for governments. Streamlining inefficient processes, providing digital access and delivery of services to meet public expectations, implementing technology to protect constituent data, leveraging information to make data-driven decisions and migrating outdated on-premises systems to the cloud are crucial to an entity’s success. Through these types of digital services, entities can keep scale with future demand and be better positioned to rapidly respond to changing demands.

1. Artificial intelligence

With 76% of IT leaders agreeing that generative AI will be significant or transformative for their organizations [1], Artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to grow in popularity and importance throughout the public sector. From enhancing efficiency, decision-making and service delivery, AI is streamlining administrative tasks, reducing the burden on government employees and allowing for more time to focus on value-added tasks.

However, as the public sector continues to integrate AI into its operations, it also highlights the importance of both AI readiness and AI governance. AI readiness works to prepare the entity to effectively adopt AI technologies by identifying where AI can add value within your entity, investing in the necessary infrastructure and developing a workforce culture that fosters understanding and safe use of these systems. Additionally, the establishment of an AI governance framework provides guidelines for the ethical, transparent and responsible use of AI. By focusing on both readiness and governance, public sector entities can better prepare for the complexities of future AI deployment while minimizing risk and building public trust.

Public sector entities can get started incorporating AI into their digital transformation goals by engaging in an AI readiness assessment to identify risks and gaps that need to be addressed prior to development of use cases and the launching or acceleration of any AI initiatives. A comprehensive readiness assessment considers technological aspects as well as strategic alignment and workforce readiness, ensuring a holistic, safe and responsible approach to AI adoption.

2. Cloud technology

Cloud technology can provide public sector entities scalable, cost-effective and efficient solutions to modernize their outdated systems and reimagine constituent services by automating back-office solutions, reducing IT and operational expenses and leveraging data to enhance community and business interactions with the government.

Facing challenges such as aging technology, system capacity issues and the need to accommodate new processes, migrating to a modern cloud application, particularly enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, can provide public sector entities with the opportunity to digitize their services to streamline inefficiencies, provide better access to information and services and migrate from outdated on-premises systems to protect their data while utilizing it to make more informed decisions.

Without cloud solutions, entities bear the full burden of infrastructure costs, including upkeep, modernization and equipment replacement at the end of lifecycle. Transitioning to a cloud provider shifts these responsibilities, leaving entities to manage only operational expenses (OpEx) rather than capital expenditures (CapEx), enhancing cost efficiency and resource allocation.

Public sector entities can get started incorporating cloud technology into their digital transformation goals by conducting a software evaluation to help identify the capabilities needed to fulfill the unique needs of your entity, regardless of whether you’re looking to replace, upgrade or scale your existing technology.

3. Cybersecurity

With the current estimates stating that by 2031 a ransomware attack will occur every two seconds [2], public sector entities must invest in cybersecurity to safeguard the sensitive information of the communities they serve. Public sector entities are often targeted by cybercriminals due to perceived vulnerabilities and significant consequences of system failures. System disruptions can lead to data loss, service outages and erosion of trust with stakeholders.

One pressing issue is the increase in fake social media accounts that deceive community members into clicking malicious links, potentially spreading viruses and misinformation. As providing a verified source of truth is essential to maintain public trust, municipal governments can mitigate these risks by using verified .gov websites, maintaining authorized social media accounts and investing in technology to scan for and eliminate fake social media accounts.

Public sector entities can get started incorporating cybersecurity services and technology into their digital transformation goals by engaging in a cybersecurity risk assessment to identify potential vulnerabilities in your existing systems and processes. Understanding your current risk landscape is critical for developing an effective cybersecurity strategy.

4. Omni-channel experiences

Customer expectations are driving the need for digital transformation in the public sector through increased interactions with apps, mobile devices, AI and automation. By leveraging existing applications or by building custom applications, public sector entities can provide constituents access to public services through a variety of self-serve channels that create a better user experience, consistent with the experiences they’re familiar with receiving from B2C companies in their day to day lives.

As organizations that have the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, compared to 33% of organizations with weak strategies , it’s clear that public sector entities must enable a seamless customer journey across platforms. With the omni-channel approach, all integrated systems can communicate with one another to execute workflows seamlessly, creating an improved and transparent end user experience. This visibility builds confidence in the municipality’s operations and fosters a stronger relationship between the community and the entity.

To start implementing omni-channel operations, public sector entities should undertake a process assessment to uncover pain-points in current-state processes and outline opportunity areas for improvement delivered through a sequenced road map. This process involves understanding common themes across departments to identify and prioritize solutions that provide immediate value to enhance overall efficiency and service delivery.

5. Digital maturity

A lack of understanding around digital maturity could be significantly impacting the success of your entity’s digital transformation efforts. Digital maturity equips entities with the strategic clarity, resource efficiency, infrastructure and adaptive capabilities needed to execute digital transformation initiatives. Without a mature digital foundation, transformation efforts may be under-resourced and less effective.

Many public sector entities struggle to determine their position on a digital maturity scale, often creating a lack of clarity around how to get started on their digital transformation initiatives – leading to delays and backlogs on projects. Additionally, public sector leaders, especially in municipalities, often find themselves operating within their own authority and may lack visibility into other departments. By bringing in an independent party to facilitate collaboration across all departments, entities can identify common themes and create a unified strategy to generate momentum that would be difficult to achieve if each department were working in isolation. Understanding and improving your digital maturity can break down silos and drive forward cohesive, entity-wide digital transformation.

Entities should look to undergo a digital strategy assessment to understand the current state of their entity from a technical, organizational and cultural perspective. As entities progress in each of these areas, they develop their digital maturity which supports the entity in establishing the capacity to self-sustain further digital transformation and innovation down the line.

Five steps to get started on your digital initiatives

1. Assess your current state: Assess the current state of your digital landscape to uncover process pain-points, potential system vulnerabilities or risk areas and identify the capabilities needed to deliver on your ideal future state.
2. Develop a strategy: Create a digital strategy that aligns with your organizational mission and objectives that outlines desired future-state outcomes, potential use cases and a road map for implementation.
3. Engage leadership: Involve key stakeholders, including employees, citizens and policymakers to actively champion digital transformation initiatives and communicate their strategic importance to ensure buy-in across all levels of your entity. Clear communication helps address any concerns while building support and trust for incoming changes.
4. Evaluate existing technology landscape: Once your transformation goals are defined, it’s important to evaluate your existing technology landscape and identify future needs. Whether you're looking to replace, upgrade, improve or scale your existing technology, a strong understanding of your current state can help to select the appropriate digital solutions to meet the functional and technical needs of your entity.
5. Leverage change management practices: Your people are a major contributor to the success of your digital transformation initiatives. Engaging in effective change management practices can help enhance data and AI literacy, create shared understanding, build trust and drive cultural alignment to democratize the use of digital systems while fostering understanding within your workforce.

While many public sector entities have already begun their digital transformation journey, others are looking for help to get started. Understand how a cultivated and tactical digital plan enables your goals and better prepares you for digital transformation. Our digital strategy team can help guide your entity with a structured approach to enable organizational change, streamline operations, mitigate risk, improve constituent services and drive greater return from achieving your digital transformation goals.

We’re here to help

Baker Tilly’s digital solutions team combines strategic industry knowledge and advanced technology experience that enables us to work with your entity across your digital government transformation needs.