Re-thinking Digital Transformation for public sector CIOs

According to Gartner, by 2024, over 40% of public-sector knowledge workers will permanently work from home, contributing up to 20% to a projected economic decline in capital cities.

Additionally, the pressure of modernising legacy ERP systems has forced government agencies to rethink the priorities for any digital transformation. Public-sector CIOs must and want to use best practices to launch ERP initiatives. They want to embrace any dedication of their teams to public service to deliver long-lasting benefits. And this includes getting CRM or a good customer strategy bedded down within their organisations.

But how do you do more with less within an IT environment characterised by change fatigue… and in a Covid dominated world? How do you do it without independent advice?

For many years, public sector CIOs have been facing many issues related to ERP deployments, including using a “what’s in it for me” approach so as to engender higher levels of end-user participation.  This has included engaging current functional domain process owners and the product owners within the planning, deployment or commissioning and even pushing to build an internal competency centre for the solution that oversees the training and change.

To be successful involves addressing where you can:

1. Aging infrastructure: public sector legacy ERP applications that need to be modernised with more comprehensive CRM functionality or replaced. 
2. Overly complicated governance: this often makes the determining system or product owners a political nightmare.
3. Organisational culture: a culture that doesn’t allow workforce skills, roles and responsibilities to adapt quickly.
4. Employees fighting: The big war within is often to retain control or stay in their comfort zones. 
5. Scattered individual pilot projects: any solution or project that cannot either integrate or scale often blights your ERP solution. 
6. Complex procurement processes: any approach that favours the cheapest approach over the best technical or operational fit makes the whole ERP project a nightmare.
7. Vapour-ware: where are the sites using the functionality and integration successfully now for the ERP or CRM you have or are considering? What can you learn? Any quick wins?