Digital transformation is not a new concept to government agencies, but their efforts to achieve it are changing. Over the last 20 or so years, the government sector has advanced digitally on many levels – from the early days of e-government initiatives during the dot-com boom to the establishment of digital service teams. But it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that government digital transformation efforts were magnified.
The pandemic drove higher levels of digitization in the public sector, at much faster speeds. According to a Deloitte survey, agencies’ fast-acting efforts were not done in vain. The survey, which included input from 800 government officials around the world, showed that 77% of agencies are already seeing a positive impact from their digital transformation efforts during the pandemic.
Despite this positive result, the survey also indicated that 80% of respondents do not think that their agencies’ efforts have gone far enough. Gartner’s research backs up this notion, stating that while government CIOs recognize how valuable digitization is, they’re struggling to complete initiatives. In fact, according to Gartner, 80% of government agencies are “still at the initial or developing digital maturity stages.”
The remote-based world is here to stay, and agencies need to arm themselves with the solutions required to effectively serve the public from anywhere. To do that, you need to first understand the key benefits of government modernization, what it is, and how it works.
The Benefits of Government Digital Transformation
The benefits of government digital transformation span far beyond the elimination of paper and paperwork. Facilitating transformation in the truest sense, today’s solutions incorporate e-forms, workflow automation, and content management platforms to eliminate manual tasks, enhance public service responsiveness, and create measurable internal operational efficiencies.
These solutions also deliver maximum value for your budget dollars through reduced costs of labor and document storage, making digital initiatives even more necessary.
And the need spans government agencies and functions across federal, state, and local jurisdictions – from the courthouse to the clerk’s office. Here are some of the agencies and departments that can benefit from digital transformation solutions:
- County, state, and federal courts
- County clerk offices and recorders of deeds
- Sheriff’s offices and jail administration
- Building, zoning, and property appraisal offices
- Social services
- Health and human services
- Revenue and licensing departments
- Finance, controller, budget, and management offices
- Pension funds, plans, boards, and retirement systems
- Human resources and accounts payable
- Risk management
What Is Government Digitization & Modernization?
Digital transformation efforts may look a little different agency by agency, but they all start off the same: with the digitization of paper files. Document scanning is the key that unlocks the door to a world of other transformative tools, like workflow automation and document management software.
Here’s an example of what a modernization solution might look like:
- Intake: Physical documents are picked up directly from the agency’s location or mailed to a PO box managed by the business process outsourcing (BPO) partner. Email and fax servers are configured to accept electronic documents.
- Preparation & Scanning: Paper documents are batched, prepped, and scanned by trained technicians. Documents are stripped out of emails and prepared for processing.
- Data Capture: Critical data is extracted through OCR technology, barcode recognition, and/or integration with agency-provided data files, or keyed from image with edit-check validation. Documents are matched against agency-identified categories/types for easy merging into existing platforms.
- Quality Control: Captured images and data are reviewed for accuracy. Anomalies are flagged for agency review, reducing the time spent managing exceptions.
- Delivery: Documents are securely transmitted to the agency or directly uploaded to an existing system or partner-hosted platform and automatically routed to the right person for processing.
But government modernization doesn’t have to end there. With e-form software, you can further improve processing times and efficiently meet public needs by streamlining the creation, completion, distribution, and processing of transactional forms.
And you can implement workflow automation and robotic process automation (RPA) software to eliminate even more manual tasks. Not to mention, cloud solutions enable you to provide the public with secure access to critical documents from anywhere, on any device.
The combination of these technologies is what creates true government modernization.
Finding the Right Digital Transformation Partner
The success of government digitization projects often comes down to finding a partner with the experience, expertise, standards, security, and a commitment to industry best practices that government processes demand. At MetaSource, we take pride in maintaining all of those things and more.
Here are a few reasons why agencies choose MetaSource as their digital transformation partner:
- Trusted processes: 200 million documents captured annually
- Commitment to data security: PCI DSS, CJIS, SOC 2 Type 2, and HIPAA compliant
- Quality assurance: onsite Six Sigma-trained operations directors
- Best-in-class technology: customizable solutions that include document scanning, workflow automation, e-forms, document management software, and public-facing portals
- Unmatched experience: long-standing and trusted partner to a variety of government agencies, including the nation’s largest court system
We continuously demonstrate our ability to provide the diligence, processes, and technology needed to drive digital transformation for the public sector.
If you’re facing a complex government agency digitization project, MetaSource is a single-source solution provider with demonstrated experience, reliable solutions and a repeatable operational playbook for establishing – and meeting – measurable goals aligned with your vision.
Our deep expertise with project implementation, digitization technology, workflow automation, and document management make us a no-risk choice even for high-risk projects.
Contact us today to learn more about our work with government modernization, and read about how we helped the Morrison County, MN Social Services Department save $65,000 a year and free up 2 offices worth of space in our case study.