Digital
Transformation: Avoid Paving the Cow Path!
By
Dr. Gamini
Padmaperuma
The importance of digitalization of
the economy and particularly the government services is a subject that has been
under discussion for a few years now. The National Peoples Power(NPP) too has
emphasized the vital importance of the same before and after the election, and
actions are currently being undertaken for establishment of a Ministry and
other relevant government institutions, and appointment of suitable
professionals to lead them.
In the NPP’s Digital Policy Document published
in August 2024, “Implementing rapid digitization programs for all government
institutions to increase their efficiency, transparency, and make them
paperless” is stated as a major goal under the Transparent and Efficient Governance section. This is one of the significant
goals among the eleven or so other goals mentioned there under different
subheadings. However, the author feels that the word ‘digitalization’ is more
appropriate than the ‘digitization’ for the context stated in the document.
While Digitization
refers to the process of converting analog data into a digital format, digitalization involves the integration
of digital technologies into business operations to optimize processes, enhance
customer experiences, and drive innovation. Digitization
serves as a prerequisite to the Digitalization which incorporates the
infusion of digital product or service in to the organization’s processes, resulting
in Digital Transformation. Digital
Transformation represents the innovative restructuring of organizations,
greater customer satisfaction and greater value addition to the business,
originated from digital diffusion. This overall process is known as the Pyramid
of Digital Transformation.
While there are many policy,
procedural and institutional matters that need to be discussed, formulated, established
and implemented to ensure a successful and sustainable journey of digital
transformation at the national level, this article attempts to emphasize some
critically important prerequisites that are necessary for successful
implementation of digitalization of any government processes or services.
It is essential to conduct Business
Process Reengineering (BPR) for any process or service that is to be
digitalized. This has to be done prior to applying the digital transformation
tools. We have seen many failures in the past in relation to automation of
processes and services, which were attempted without proper business process
analysis. It is typical that many organizations place undue emphasis on
adopting new technologies to “go digital” rather than focusing on the actual
transformation through a proper analysis of the subject processes that need to be
improved and documented, prior to applying the digital tools on them.
Obviously, the improvements to the processes also need to consider the capacity
and benefits that the digital tools can provide in improving the reliability
and the user-friendliness of the process that can be shared with the customer.
Business processes, and the documents, people, and systems
linked to them, are at the heart of how every organization operates. But the
fact is, most businesses are wildly inefficient. Paperwork and manual tasks tie
up employee’s time, poorly managed information kills productivity, every
department has their own system for storing data, and the list goes on. This
often leads to delays, inaccuracies, and widespread deviations where work
happens differently every time. As a result, the citizens are dissatisfied and start
to complain about the inefficiency and delays in availing the required services
from the organizations or businesses.
The title of this article, Digital
Transformation: Avoid Paving the Cow Path! was coined intentionally to
emphasize the importance of the Business Process Reengineering that need to be
carried out prior to any digitalization as its relevance has been largely
ignored. Most of the processes we use in our government offices are ancient and
some of them still have the resemblance of colonial era practices. These
processes need to be revamped or reengineered to incorporate today’s technology
and customer expectations, productivity and reliability expected, reduce
employee discontent, provide a respectful image about the organization, etc.
For those who are not yet familiar with the above phrase
involving the Cow Path, let me shed some light on it. This phrase refers to the common practice of
using new software, etc. to automate old and inefficient business processes. The
emphasis is to avoid recurrence of such practices and to take time to analyze
the current business processes critically to suggest improvements to be more
productive, customer-friendly which also add more value to the business, etc.
The improvements to the process need to be discussed and agreed upon by all the
stakeholders of the process. These discussions are usually held by the process
owners (who are responsible for implementing the process) with the participation
of the recipients of their service (customers), other relevant stakeholders,
and experts from the organization’s digitalization initiatives from both IT and
BPE backgrounds, etc. Business Process Reengineering
thus carried out provides recommendations for restructuring the processes and
any new technologies with everything properly scoped out and prioritized. These
discussions between the process owners, subject matter experts, digitalization
experts, customers and other stakeholders need to be conducted in a
professional and structured manner. These discussions need to be supported by the
top management and also necessary training for the personnel should be
provided. There are many useful management techniques involved in Business
Process Engineering such as data analysis techniques, customer survey, benchmarking,
flowcharting, process mapping, SWOT analysis, cost-benefit analysis, etc.
It is essential to provide the necessary resources and training
to the concerned employees to be able to actively participate in the digital
transformation initiative. The all government sector employees should have adequate
awareness of the government’s digital transformation initiative and should be
motivated to provide their support to the same. The change should be properly
managed by assigned change managers or change champions at the operational and
executive level. The higher management should always support the initiative,
monitor the progress and provide necessary support to sustain the momentum. The
fear of using new technology should be tackled appropriately. As the
transformation effort will take place, there should be continuous and cordial dialogue
between the employees, citizens and the organization. The feedback from the
employees about the transformation should be regularly solicited, duly analyzed
and action taken.
The
primary benefits of digitalization range from increased operational efficiency
and improved employee productivity. Digitalization also reduces costs
associated with physical document management, manual processes and travel. In
terms of intangible benefits, the digitalization of business processes
optimizes customer satisfaction and information management. Organizations
equipped with an agile digital infrastructure can swiftly adapt to changes in
the environment, leading to improved performance and customer satisfaction.
Like any other management initiatives involving major structural changes on how
the business is carried out, the digital transformation should also be subject to
continuous improvement through use of customer feedback, incorporation of
changes in technology, etc. Further, Digital infrastructure is the foundation of any connected
business. It enables success,
powers transformation and connects people around the world. It is therefore, mandatory for
the government and private sector to provide such infrastructure facilities to
its citizens with appropriate bandwidth, reliability and at a reasonable cost
for the Digital Transformation to succeed.
(Dr. Gamini Padmaperuma is a
Chartered Professional Engineer, Honorary Fellow Member of IESL, former
Director, Academic Affairs at Saegis Campus and Senior Lecturer at OUSL , and
holds a PhD from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand)