Digital Adoption Challenges in the Government

The government can avoid common risks and failure points by planning carefully for a digital transformation.

FREMONT, CA: Modernizing government systems, infrastructure, and processes is often challenging for government organizations. With proper planning, your government organization can ensure a relatively smooth digital transformation and avoid common risks and failure points. You must assess your organization's systems, infrastructure, and processes during planning.

Understanding the required resources, budget, and potential failure points of the transformation.

Organizational silos: The public sector is especially prone to silos. Each department has needs and wants, so coordinating a digital transformation across the organization can be challenging. Establish ownership of the government's digital transformation as soon as possible to avoid these issues and prevent ERP failure. Determine which groups will be responsible for developing the digital strategy and ensuring its success. Identify how you'll prioritize, fund, and deliver key initiatives across any existing silos with your core project team.

Costing challenges​: The first issue government organizations must overcome to avoid transformation failure is inconsistent software license pricing. Determining which software license best fits your needs and budget is difficult because software licenses aren't always priced consistently from one organization to another. Furthermore, organizations can choose a fixed-price contract, agreeing to pay a fixed price for the entire implementation process. The deliverables will include those planned by the systems integrator and those chosen by government employees. It's easy to overestimate your team's capability and underestimate how much everything will cost during the price negotiation phase. Ensure employees have the necessary skills, experience, and qualifications before assigning duties.

Change resistance​: People are naturally risk averse and prefer to stick to what is familiar and consistent regarding a government's digital transformation. A massive change must align with key business outcomes to motivate employees to see why it is necessary. Employees accustomed to their workflows may resist undergoing a major change. Keep employees informed and explain the benefits of organizational change management (OCM). Stay transparent, answer questions, and listen to suggestions.

IT knowledge shortage: The project also needs employees with IT and digital skills. By identifying your company's IT, business, and subject matter experts early, you can ensure timely access to them. Moving into major technology domains requires shifting your business focus. However, these resources may not always be available when needed, as departments have different priorities, and teams may still operate in silos. The IT gap can be filled, but don't assume your employees can fill it if you plan for them to learn low-code tech and other easy-to-deployable solutions. Instead, plan to ensure the IT resources in your government organization will be available and ready to help when the time comes.