By Dr. Gamini Padmaperuma

The importance of digitalization of the economy and particularly the government services is a subject that has been under discussion for a few years now. The National Peoples Power(NPP) too has emphasized the vital importance of the same before and after the election, and actions are currently being undertaken for establishment of a Ministry and other relevant government institutions, and appointment of suitable professionals to lead them.

 In the NPP’s Digital Policy Document published in August 2024, Implementing rapid digitization programs for all government institutions to increase their efficiency, transparency, and make them paperless” is stated as a major goal under the Transparent and Efficient Governance section. This is one of the significant goals among the eleven or so other goals mentioned there under different subheadings. However, the author feels that the word ‘digitalization’ is more appropriate than the ‘digitization’ for the context stated in the document.

While Digitization refers to the process of converting analog data into a digital format, digitalization involves the integration of digital technologies into business operations to optimize processes, enhance customer experiences, and drive innovation. Digitization serves as a prerequisite to the Digitalization which incorporates the infusion of digital product or service in to the organization’s processes, resulting in Digital Transformation.  Digital Transformation represents the innovative restructuring of organizations, greater customer satisfaction and greater value addition to the business, originated from digital diffusion. This overall process is known as the Pyramid of Digital Transformation.

While there are many policy, procedural and institutional matters that need to be discussed, formulated, established and implemented to ensure a successful and sustainable journey of digital transformation at the national level, this article attempts to emphasize some critically important prerequisites that are necessary for successful implementation of digitalization of any government processes or services.

It is essential to conduct Business Process Reengineering (BPR) for any process or service that is to be digitalized. This has to be done prior to applying the digital transformation tools. We have seen many failures in the past in relation to automation of processes and services, which were attempted without proper business process analysis. It is typical that many organizations place undue emphasis on adopting new technologies to go digital” rather than focusing on the actual transformation through a proper analysis of the subject processes that need to be improved and documented, prior to applying the digital tools on them. Obviously, the improvements to the processes also need to consider the capacity and benefits that the digital tools can provide in improving the reliability and the user-friendliness of the process that can be shared with the customer.

Business processes, and the documents, people, and systems linked to them, are at the heart of how every organization operates. But the fact is, most businesses are wildly inefficient. Paperwork and manual tasks tie up employee’s time, poorly managed information kills productivity, every department has their own system for storing data, and the list goes on. This often leads to delays, inaccuracies, and widespread deviations where work happens differently every time. As a result, the citizens are dissatisfied and start to complain about the inefficiency and delays in availing the required services from the organizations or businesses.

The title of this article, Digital Transformation: Avoid Paving the Cow Path! was coined intentionally to emphasize the importance of the Business Process Reengineering that need to be carried out prior to any digitalization as its relevance has been largely ignored. Most of the processes we use in our government offices are ancient and some of them still have the resemblance of colonial era practices. These processes need to be revamped or reengineered to incorporate today’s technology and customer expectations, productivity and reliability expected, reduce employee discontent, provide a respectful image about the organization, etc.

For those who are not yet familiar with the above phrase involving the Cow Path, let me shed some light on it. This phrase refers to the common practice of using new software, etc. to automate old and inefficient business processes. The emphasis is to avoid recurrence of such practices and to take time to analyze the current business processes critically to suggest improvements to be more productive, customer-friendly which also add more value to the business, etc. The improvements to the process need to be discussed and agreed upon by all the stakeholders of the process. These discussions are usually held by the process owners (who are responsible for implementing the process) with the participation of the recipients of their service (customers), other relevant stakeholders, and experts from the organization’s digitalization initiatives from both IT and BPE backgrounds, etc. Business Process Reengineering thus carried out provides recommendations for restructuring the processes and any new technologies with everything properly scoped out and prioritized. These discussions between the process owners, subject matter experts, digitalization experts, customers and other stakeholders need to be conducted in a professional and structured manner. These discussions need to be supported by the top management and also necessary training for the personnel should be provided. There are many useful management techniques involved in Business Process Engineering such as data analysis techniques, customer survey, benchmarking, flowcharting, process mapping, SWOT analysis, cost-benefit analysis, etc.  

It is essential to provide the necessary resources and training to the concerned employees to be able to actively participate in the digital transformation initiative. The all government sector employees should have adequate awareness of the government’s digital transformation initiative and should be motivated to provide their support to the same. The change should be properly managed by assigned change managers or change champions at the operational and executive level. The higher management should always support the initiative, monitor the progress and provide necessary support to sustain the momentum. The fear of using new technology should be tackled appropriately. As the transformation effort will take place, there should be continuous and cordial dialogue between the employees, citizens and the organization. The feedback from the employees about the transformation should be regularly solicited, duly analyzed and action taken.

The primary benefits of digitalization range from increased operational efficiency and improved employee productivity. Digitalization also reduces costs associated with physical document management, manual processes and travel. In terms of intangible benefits, the digitalization of business processes optimizes customer satisfaction and information management. Organizations equipped with an agile digital infrastructure can swiftly adapt to changes in the environment, leading to improved performance and customer satisfaction. Like any other management initiatives involving major structural changes on how the business is carried out, the digital transformation should also be subject to continuous improvement through use of customer feedback, incorporation of changes in technology, etc. Further, Digital infrastructure is the foundation of any connected business. It enables success, powers transformation and connects people around the world. It is therefore, mandatory for the government and private sector to provide such infrastructure facilities to its citizens with appropriate bandwidth, reliability and at a reasonable cost for the Digital Transformation to succeed.

(Dr. Gamini Padmaperuma is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Honorary Fellow Member of IESL, former Director, Academic Affairs at Saegis Campus and Senior Lecturer at OUSL , and holds a PhD from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand)