By Dante Ricci, Global Marketing Team Lead for Services, Financial Services and Public Services Industries at SAP
While the idea of boosting government efficiency is enjoying a moment in the political spotlight, it’s not inherently political. Who doesn’t want the U.S. government — or any other organization, be it a business or a nonprofit — to be able to deliver equal or better products and services using fewer resources?
Governments are not businesses. But lessons from for-profit organizations apply. Businesses must be strategic in delivering value at a fair price. They must maximize efficiency because, if they don’t and their competition does, sales will suffer. Well-run businesses set ambitious goals and establish key performance indicators to measure progress against those goals, and they adapt strategies and tactics based on how those KPIs shake out. With all that in mind, let’s consider a key way for governments and agencies to improve how they do business — the automation of processes using technology to cut costs and improve service — and what it takes to do it right.
Create a Roadmap
Don’t waste time automating inefficient or superfluous processes. So, the first step is to think hard about what the organization is supposed to be doing for stakeholders and constituents and how that aligns with what it’s actually doing. For areas that don’t strategically align, cuts may be in order. For value-added processes, a deeper dive will establish how people go about their work and what the tools they use as they do so.
Understanding those tools involves a digital discovery assessment that spans the organization, covering key processes related to service delivery as well as back-office functions including finance, HR and procurement. System integrators are well versed in digital maturity/discovery assessments, and, given the potential of generative AI, machine learning, and other cloud-based tools to enable self-service and streamline the work of government employees, these exercises can lay the foundation for serious improvement.
Understand Your Processes & How They Align With Your Goals
This is where the deeper dive mentioned above happens. How does the process align with the business outcome — the government service — you want to achieve? What steps in the process can you eliminate or automate? What choke points can you uncork? What handoffs can you smooth out, automate, or eliminate? What technology or technologies can help?
Consider then how you’ll measure and track your improved, technology-bolstered processes. The KPIs could relate to cost savings, increased revenues (through taxes, fees, or leases), caseload productivity, citizen satisfaction, program-related metrics such as health outcomes or childhood poverty rates, and so on. These metrics then help prioritize automation efforts.
The benefits of tracking and measurement, ideally supported by data insights through dashboards showing real-time or near-real-time status, serve other important purposes. Foremost, it helps keep the organization focused on its core mission and continuous improvement. But also, tracking and measuring boosts transparency for taxpayers, auditors and lawmakers, demonstrating concretely that the organization’s work is aligned with its public mission and that it’s serious about doing that work efficiently and effectively.
Automate Where Gains Are Greatest
With rationalized business processes in hand, automation can proceed. Repetitive manual processes should get special attention. For example, one can drastically speed up the processing of work visas, security clearances or grant applications by using machine learning to assess applicants’ basic information and capabilities to filter out noncompliance and root out red flags. Leases for logging or mineral exploration on public lands can be priced based on the actual market value of similar leases on private lands. Machine learning can orchestrate and prioritize routes for field personnel such as inspectors and case managers. Investigative support systems can help investigators manage information, prioritize and schedule caseloads, and ensure that cases keep moving forward. Process automation extends to the development of the IT systems supporting process automation through the use of low-code/no-code platforms.
Iterate
Process- and workflow-automation tools as well as other fast-evolving technologies will open up automation possibilities where the costs and benefits merit investment. As intra- or interagency systems coalesce around unified or easily integrated cloud platforms, new opportunities for efficiency gains through automation will emerge.
The combination of more effective service delivery and the ability to show progress in running efficient, effective government organizations through KPI-verified process automation should boost constituent and political support for agencies and, more broadly, the U.S. government as a whole. This has the additional benefit of improving the job satisfaction of existing staff and making careers in government more appealing to young talent.
The ultimate aim here is not to minimize the human role in government but rather to rationalize processes and harness automation so the people working for We the People can apply their skills and experience to work smarter, faster and more effectively. That’s something we can all agree on, right?
