Guest post by Bryan Stall, Xerox Sales Manager covering the State of California
The biggest annual IT budget in state government comes in at $7.3 billion, and it belongs to California. That spend is far beyond the experience of all but the largest of enterprises, but even funding-challenged IT departments can learn a thing or two from tech leaders in state government. Customer-driven organizations resemble citizen-driven ones in more ways than you might think. The digital constituent could just as easily be the digital customer, so any best practices have broad appeal.
Cross-pollination Improves Innovation Harvest
Not only is California the most populous state in the nation, it has the sixth largest economy in the world. The IT trends in this immense market offer insights to organizations of all kinds. Processes come in every flavor and size.
Technology doesn’t happen in isolation, and good ideas spread. Just as government cross-pollinates with ideas from the private sector, knowledge also flows the other way. Customer experience in the private sector can benefit from lessons learned in reinventing the citizen experience.
What Ideas Attract Thought Leaders in Government Tech?
Digital innovation has given rise to new paradigms in private sector customer experience, and government feels it can and must do the same. What’s happening in retail or insurance for example, translates to the government sector space when it comes to generating, moving, securing and managing documents.
Organizations send teams to events like the California Digital Government Summit to learn ways to reinvent the citizen experience. The Summit gathers hundreds of the most influential state and local technology leaders to discuss the most pressing IT issues throughout the state. What’s on the minds of the most influential state and local technology leaders?
State Government Use Apps to Reinvent Citizen Experience
One of the themes making the rounds of government is apps. Digital governments are embracing apps as useful ways to think about and manage work processes differently. Apps-based workflow is relatively easy to implement, and extremely flexible and reliably secure.
Other innovations like an “easy translator” tool are also making an impact on constituent services, but the value goes beyond the immediate need for a translated document. It is part of a bigger goal of making that an easier step on a wider, cohesive, trackable process. It’s about enabling a smoother workflow and removing steps.
When that happens, it improves constituent experience i.e. customer experience. It changes the perception of what government has to offer, and that’s important today. “Digital transformation is changing the expectations of everyone — customers, citizens, corporations and employees — because of the ubiquitiousness of it,” notes Lawrence Lee, Xerox Vice President, Incubation & Strategy, Research & Product Development. (Lee is a featured presenter at the 2018 Summit, and a future blog will share his insights from the event.)
Digital transformation has been called “a challenge of innovation,” says Lee. “It’s taking what you have and putting it together in new ways to serve users.”
Government Employees Also Flourish with Digital Workflow
Anything focused on improving constituent experience by extension must address employee experience, too. Government employees feel the blowback from bad constituent services, while better processes boost morale. The benefit is real, so digital governments seek innovations in analytics and machine intelligence that help employees be better at delivering services to constituents.
Los Angeles, for example, has its own city “Alexa.” The government has the need to understand and speak multiple languages throughout the city and provide guidance in terms of forms. This is especially critical as the city gears up for the 2020 Olympics.
Whether customers or constituents, they thrive on the same kind of care. And don’t forget the employee stakeholder. Process automation pays off in more employee productivity per hour.
Visit this page for more information about the Xerox and the Digital Government Summit.
