Governments moving into post-digital era: Gartner says

Gartner analyst Dean Lacheca noted that the transition to digital government had accelerated rapidly in recent years and many governments are now moving into a post-digital era.

This is where the business case for further investment has to offer more than improving the citizen experience or delivering administrative efficiencies, he said. Businesses must be able to offer benefits that are directly linked to their mission or public purpose.

Citing Gartner research, he said up to 90% of government organisations are either in the process of scaling digital government or have already done so across the main functions of their organisations.

He predicts that by 2026, over 75% of governments will gauge digital transformation success by measuring the enduring mission impact, rather than only looking at hours saved, efficiency or citizen satisfaction.

“Post-digital government requires organisations to reset their ambitions and focus on their public purpose,” he said, adding that ambitious targets will force governments to look differently at the capabilities and approaches they are using.

Delivering enduring mission outcomes requires them to find the moments that matter, which means building cognitive empathy for the needs of citizens and stakeholders, he noted.

“Governments must leverage data insights to both anticipate optimal engagement and effectively react to the unexpected,” he said, “They must also look to develop an orchestrated ecosystem of partners centred on shared outcomes.”

Embracing cognitive empathy

To get to the heart of what really matters to the individuals involved, Lacheca said government organisations should develop cognitive empathy capabilities to build a more complete and accurate understanding of stakeholders as people.

Also, governments should focus on critical moments that are going to make a difference and how they will impact them, he said.

“To achieve this, governments must identify direct and indirect stakeholders and understand the journey they’re going through during a particular transaction or engagement. This is not about understanding a transactional flow. It will help them chart how stakeholder needs change at different points, and what creates frustration, distrust, discomfort or engagement.”

He said a need-driven approach must be taken for all stakeholders involved and address those needs as effectively as possible. This approach allows critical moments to be identified, stakeholder engagement to be optimised, and knowledge on when to be reactive or proactive, he said.

“Human-centered design is an approach that encapsulates this,” he said, “It involves problem-solving with empathy as a cornerstone, putting the citizen at the heart of the solution.”

Leveraging data insights

To pivot the experience towards the optimal outcome, Lacheca said post-digital government requires hyper-personalised services that combine these empathy insights with real-time, actionable operational insights during the decision-making process.

“Gartner predicts over 60% of government artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics investments will drive real-time operational decisions and outcomes by 2024,” he said

He said the company’s survey conducted in April-May this year showed that 70% of 161 government organisations have deployed, or plan to deploy, generative AI in the next three years.

“Governments are using AI to capture new data that was previously not available and unlocks the value of existing data,” he said, but warned that new real-time data insights must be operationalised into ways of working to have a real impact.

“Governments must be able to map the flow of data, turn that data into insight, understand how that insight impacts a decision and turn that into a tangible action.”

Orchestrating ecosystems

Lacheca said an ecosystem orchestrated around a shared problem, or outcome, is more likely to innovate and deliver the enduring mission outcomes desired by all government.

“To orchestrate these ecosystems requires careful assessment of stakeholder value and incentive – which could be anything from establishing a shared platform, offering access to a subset of government data, enabling comprehensive engagement with the citizens involved, or shared facilities and resources,” he said.

To successfully transition into a post-digital government era, he said governments should pay attention to new supporting technologies that can be incorporated into their technology roadmap.

“Governments do not invest just because it is a good idea, so you must be able to link these technology roadmaps to the mission outcomes focus of the post-digital era,” he said.