Government organizations often experience challenges when modernizing their systems, infrastructure, and processes. However, with proper planning, your government organization can ensure a relatively smooth digital transformation and avoid common risks and failure points.
Today, we’re sharing the top government digital transformation challenges and how to prepare for them.
5 Government Digital Transformation Challenges
1. Organizational Silos
Silos can exist in any organization, but they’re especially common in the public sector. Each department has its own needs and preferences, and it can be challenging to coordinate an enterprise-wide digital transformation.
To prevent these issues and avoid ERP failure, establish ownership of the project as early as possible. Determine which groups will be responsible for developing the digital strategy and ensuring its success. Then, work with your core project team to outline how you’ll prioritize, fund, and execute key initiatives across any silos that exist.
2. Costing Challenges
There are two core costing issues that government organizations must circumvent to avoid transformation failure.
The first is inconsistent software license pricing. Software licenses aren’t always priced consistently from one vendor to the next.
There’s also the issue of the fixed-price contract where organizations agree to pay a firm price for the total implementation. It’s easy to overestimate your team’s abilities and underestimate how much everything will cost.
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3. Change Resistance
Humans are naturally risk-averse, preferring to stick to what’s familiar. That’s why resistance and pushback are common in government digital transformations.
Employees who have become comfortable with their workflows might buck the idea of undergoing a massive change. In their opinion, the best practices they’re currently using are tried-and-true, so why should they do anything differently?
To help them see why change is necessary, align the project with key business outcomes. Then, make organizational change management (OCM) a core part of your strategy. Keep employees in the loop and explain what’s in it for them. Stay transparent, and be willing to answer questions and field suggestions.
4. Poor Project Planning
Digital transformation requires robust planning. If your team decides to “wing it,” you could miscalculate several key parts of the project, including:
• The overall scope of the project
• The number of resources needed
• The time it takes to define and validate software requirements
• How much customization or configuration the software will need
• What project success factors to track
Miscalculating even one of these elements can throw your budget and timeline off track. Prioritize planning from the beginning, and establish an executive sponsor who can keep activities on schedule.
5. Insufficient Digital and IT Skills
Public sector employees must have knowledge and experience in many different fields if they’re going to successfully use the new software. Necessary skills include but aren’t limited to:
• Cybersecurity
• Cloud data management
• Data analytics
• Platform services
• IoT (Internet of Things)
While not all of your employees will need the same skills, there are some skills that are essential across the board. This is where upskilling and reskilling come into play.
Avoid These Challenges
During a public-sector digital transformation, it’s important to understand some of the most common roadblocks you might face. While these are some of the top concerns, there are others you must anticipate. Our team of enterprise software consultants can help you work through government digital transformation challenges as you begin your project. Contact us below to get started.
