Our Perspective

  • Governments around the world are now digital service providers.
  • To achieve success in 'smart government,' public entities and their technology partners must ensure that infrastructure investments are infused with citizen-centric design and a focus on continuous improvement.

Governments at all levels ought to build more agile systems for garnering citizen input and delivering continuous improvement of services.

For several decades, governments worldwide have been adjusting to a new role: digital service provider. Technological advances are giving public entities — from massive federal agencies to small city departments — new opportunities to become more efficient, transparent, and reliable. IT and cloud providers, in turn, are now deeply embedded in public projects, providing everything from cloud to cybersecurity and application design.

Digital 'smart government' starts with infrastructure. On this front, the G20 group of nations recently reached a consensus on the definition of 'digital public infrastructure' (DPI). This framework, which creates a common standard for governments, international development organizations, and civil society organizations, is a significant step towards building digital public infrastructure, particularly in the Global South.

However, taking a digital-first approach to government service delivery is about more than infrastructure investment. To succeed in delivering citizen-centric digital services and a human-first digital experience, public entities and their technology partners need to design seamless digital channels and take a genuinely human-centric approach that creates intelligent feedback mechanisms to capture the citizens' voices.

Building Blocks of the Digital Citizen Experience

One of the challenges of providing public digital services is that governments tend to be highly siloed. Each entity has its unique mandate, often building its bespoke (quickly outdated) technology stack. To succeed in delivering citizen-centric services, governments need to think about infrastructure on a higher level, harmonizing technologies and the resulting citizen experience across all government functions.

Singapore's Smart Nation initiative, launched in 2014, stands as a global benchmark in integrating intelligent technologies into public services, aiming to foster a digitally innovative, citizen-responsive city. The initiative's investment in intelligent infrastructure has significantly enhanced public service efficiency. Its success is mainly due to a user-centric approach in eGovernment services, emphasizing accessibility and intuitiveness, and a strong engagement with citizens through feedback channels to ensure that services meet public needs. Additionally, Singapore's comprehensive cybersecurity measures — including the Cybersecurity Act, robust data protection laws, and the establishment of the Cyber Security Agency — secure personal data and streamline service delivery across government departments, showcasing a compelling blend of efficiency, security, and citizen focus.

Public entities worldwide should draw inspiration from countries with top E-Government Development Index (EGDI) ratings in the quest for effective eGovernment infrastructure. This index evaluates online services, telecommunication infrastructure, and human capital. Leaders like Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Estonia, and Denmark exemplify excellence, with Denmark achieving a near-perfect EGDI score of 0.9717. In contrast, the average EDGI score globally is 0.67, demonstrating the massive opportunity to improve the digital citizen experience.

Designing Citizen-first Applications

To truly serve citizens, digital services must leverage advanced technology capabilities — cloud computing, cybersecurity, data interoperability — in service of user-friendly, accessible portals. Beyond essential transactional services like online tax submissions, there's room for significant advancement. A case in point is the eGovernment initiatives in the United Arab Emirates, where rapid digitalization of municipal public services, ports and customs, airports, and other government services has enhanced government-citizen engagement, boosted efficiency, and fostered trust through increased transparency.

Success in digital government services hinges on their round-the-clock availability, multi-device accessibility, and ease of use. Innovative technologies, including AI and IoT, are pivotal in tailoring these services to meet citizens' immediate needs. For instance, AI chatbots can instantly address inquiries, providing citizens with a government experience that is as seamless as the customer service they receive from innovative commercial brands.

To assess the impact of these services, a broad range of metrics is essential, covering:

  • User Engagement Metrics: Track user interaction and the transition from traditional to digital services, including adoption rates, active user counts, usage frequency, and session lengths.
  • Service Efficiency Metrics: Evaluate digital service performance through processing times, digitization levels (automation rate), error rates, and availability/uptime.
  • Customer Satisfaction Metrics: Understand user perceptions through Net Promoter Scores (NPS), satisfaction surveys, and user feedback.
  • Accessibility Metrics: Ensure services are inclusive, measure digital inclusion and compliance with standards like WCAG for users with disabilities, and track support requests.
  • Cost Efficiency Metrics: Assess financial benefits such as cost savings to capture the ROI of digital initiatives.

Realizing impressive results in digital government services requires an inclusive digital-first approach. This approach acknowledges the varied technological proficiency among citizens and ensures equitable access to government services. The U.K.'s 'assisted digital services' program is a prime example of this, offering kiosks and personal assistance to those less familiar with digital tools.

Continuous Improvement: Agility and Responsiveness

Traditionally, the democratic process (i.e., voting) has been the primary method by which governments can get feedback from citizens. However, given the rapid pace of digital transformation, semi-regular voting cycles are not always sufficient for gathering citizen input.

Governments at all levels (federal, city, state, etc.) would be wise to build more agile mechanisms for garnering citizen input and delivering continuous improvement. Methodologies like co-creation and crowdsourcing can allow governments to benefit from the same rapid feedback loops, enabling private companies to develop prototypes and minimum viable products. Design methodologies like design thinking can process this feedback, channeling citizen feedback to refine citizen-facing applications and the underlying IT infrastructure layer that powers them.

An excellent example of this shift towards a more responsive and citizen-centric approach is the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS). GDS has been at the forefront of integrating the "voice of the citizen" (VoC) into the digital transformation of public services. By adopting a user-centered design philosophy, GDS has effectively incorporated user feedback, data analytics, and direct user testing into the development process. This has led to significant improvements in government services, with the online tax self-assessment process being a notable success story. The focus on leveraging user insights as the foundation for service development has resulted in enhanced functionality and accessibility, thereby improving overall user satisfaction. The success of GDS highlights the importance of prioritizing the needs and experiences of citizens in the design and delivery of digital services.

This approach is not unique to the UK. Other examples include Estonia’s e-Residency Program, Singapore’s Feedback Unit, the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), and Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), each demonstrating a commitment to leveraging digital platforms for more effective and responsive governance. These digital GovTech champions demonstrate how agile methodologies and design thinking in government operations can better serve citizens' needs and ensure continuous improvement in public services, providing instructive global benchmarks.

The Path Forward: Embracing Smart Government Models

While implementing digital services poses considerable challenges, strategic planning, innovative technology use, and inclusive policies can effectively address these obstacles, enhancing public service delivery and fostering a digitally empowered society. Embracing innovative government models that leverage technology is crucial for improving efficiency, transparency, and citizen trust. These models streamline processes, automate tasks, and expedite service delivery, increasing efficiency while ensuring transparency through digital tools that offer real-time updates and greater accountability.

Building trust is paramount, necessitating the protection of citizen data and the reliability of services. This involves adopting best practices from digital government initiatives, such as visionary leadership, an integrated approach, user-centered design, strong data governance, innovation, effective change management, data-driven decision-making, accessibility, continuous improvement, public-private partnerships, monitoring, and a focus on citizen-centric services.

Investments in technology infrastructure are crucial, including partnerships with leading cloud service providers. These partnerships provide secure and scalable platforms essential for data security. Singapore's cloud integration, focused on adhering to stringent security frameworks like ISO/IEC 27001 and specific GovTech guidelines, is an example of ensuring high security and compliance standards, demonstrating a commitment to data protection and building citizen trust.

In isolation, digitization does not guarantee a seamless citizen experience. However, by incorporating citizen-centric design and feedback mechanisms into digital initiatives, governments can deliver secure, reliable, and responsive services that meet the expectations of today’s digital citizens, ensuring a high return on digital innovation investment.

About the Authors

Sreenivas Mangasandra
Senior Manager, Wipro Consulting

Sreenivas brings over two decades of experience leading large business transformation programs with global teams. He has successfully enabled customers in airlines, automotive, banking, financial services, government, retail, and telecommunications industries. He is a certified Agile leader with robust educational background in business, innovation, strategy, and computer engineering.

Norbert Mark Czetenyi
Head of Telecom Consulting, Europe

Norbert brings over 25 years of experience in transformation programs, strategic advisory, and target operating model design across digital, BSS, and OSS for telecommunication majors. He has extensive experience in business and IT alignment, architecture design and 5G, DevOps, and cloud.