Analytics to help enable digital government migration

Most governments worldwide have already completed the first wave of e-government migration and are now moving past e-government and towards digital government, according to Ovum.

The first wave of adoption was characterised by the automation of existing processes, the research firm said in a new report.

Now the hard work begins with the transition to digital government, which Ovum defines as rethinking the business of government and linking processes to deliver a digital experience.

This will involve the use of cost-effective end-user analytics tools. Ovum Principal Analyst and report author Al Blake said analytics promises to bring the goal of governments delivering evidence-driven policy closer to reality.

“The increasing availability of massive processing power, coupled with intuitive end-user interfaces and ‘pay as you go’ delivery offerings, puts analytical capabilities at the fingertips of policymakers and planners that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. This is a real game changer,” he said.

But a key challenge for governments seeking to embrace digital government is solving the digital identity challenge. Some governments have been politically burned trying to introduce digital identity documents due to a citizen backlash over privacy concerns, Blake said.

“Countries that resolve that challenge sooner will move ahead of the pack in digital government,” he noted.

The report also finds that agile government IT organisations will require agile supporting business processes.

“There is not much point in having an agile IT unit if your procurement, recruitment and budgeting processes still take months,” Blake said.

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