Podcast: Digital Transformation: Changing the Government Environment

The Business of Government

Morgan Page discusses digital transformation and automation and its positive impact on government agencies.

Key Points: 

• Digital transformation can help accelerate growth and foster innovation
• Government digital transformation requires less customization than businesses and focuses on constituent service
• Data officers are a growing part of digital transformation in government

Technology continues to change the way organizations conduct business. Governments across the country can enhance their effectiveness by leveraging new tools and modernizing processes.

Morgan Page, Partner of Digital Transformation and Automation Services at Weaver, joins host Adam Jones for a look at how governments can take that next step in their digital transformation journey.

Page doesn’t believe digital transformation is a new concept but a rebranded one. Digital transformation happens when organizations look to improve or accelerate business processes using technology, a regular occurrence in forward thinking government organizations. Page explains, “Now we are at this next layer of digital transformation that looks at how we can best use data to accelerate even faster.”

While digital transformation is linked to an organization’s strategy and cultural priorities, digital automation focuses on the tactical execution of the activities within that transformation. Page says, “We may have a goal of eliminating processing tasks. Our digital transformation objective is that process change. Our tactical execution is the automation, using some kind of robotic process automation ( RPA) solution or intelligent optical character recognition (OCR) to extract that information.”

In the government industry, digital transformation and automation deployment is running slower than in the private sector, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t occurring. “We’re seeing an increased acceleration in the space,” according to Page. “More and more components are readily available that are a little bit more plug-and-play.”

While the solutions may be more standardized in government, Jones says many sizeable agencies are utilizing digital transformation and automation tools. “Everyone from the Texas DMV to the IRS has deployed RPA in some form or fashion.”

The transformation journey will look different for every organization as digital applications become streamlined and technology will continue to accelerate government capabilities through increased efficiencies and improved outcomes for constituents.

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