Digitizing Municipal Processes.

• Author: Wood, Jonathan

While digitalization itself--automating manual processes, for example--is a tactical maneuver, digital transformation is more about an organization's strategy to increase business value and improve business processes. It is not about the latest gadget or about slapping another IT solution on top of an old one. When implemented properly, technological solutions can provide not only more efficiency, but also more effectiveness in achieving business objectives.

Annual budget planning, for example, is critical. While many team members may be familiar with planning or budgeting software, the set of tasks that help create, control, and update the budget is about the budget process. If your government is interested in taking the next step, the first step is to determine where you are.

DETERMINE WHERE YOU ARE

An organization's digital transformation process depends on where it falls on the maturity scale.

* Low maturity: An organization relies primarily on manual processes such as updating an Excel spreadsheet by hand, or email as a communication tool.

* Mid-level maturity: An organization has automated some of those processes and can collaborate more effectively.

* High maturity: An organization evaluates and transforms its planning, budgeting, and forecasting processes to strategically enhance business performance by using digital solutions.

Digitalization--which is simply the process of converting information into a digital format--may bring technological improvement on its own, but that doesn't significantly increase business value. Planning processes require collaboration, business logic policy, and data integration. An organization can determine its maturity level for digital transformation by looking at its level of collaboration and business planning logic.

Collaboration. The most relevant indicators for process improvement are improved collaboration within the organization and fewer closed-off silos of data. When considering the appropriate technology, decisionmakers should look into modern enterprise technology that provides a collaborative link among all levels across the organization. It should also allow for regional planning capabilities to be consolidated. The point of digital transformation is to bring together strategic, financial, and operational planning.

Organizations at the lowest maturity level of collaboration mostly use "offline" communication like email--and digitalization usually allows team members to collaborate within a...