In this blog, I’m focusing on eGov initiatives found in government agencies, state-owned entities, and NGOs around the world. These initiatives digitize, streamline, or reinvent how they optimally serve their citizens, removing the complexity and cost associated with outdated solutions created in the last ten to fifteen to fifty years.
Understandably, there are always obstacles to overcome. Typically, 65% or more of citizens have interacted with a government agency over the last few years—whether it be for access to social services, digital tax collection, or renewing a driver’s license (visa). Internally, most agency CIOs face many challenges in evolving these services, including overcoming disjointed citizen experiences, inaccessible apps, and limited options for citizens with minimal computer experience. Other form factors (MX), such as kiosks and tablets, are usually considered for these individuals.
At the same time, Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) are rightly ambitious in rolling out their digital roadmaps, with the support of their CIOs, to:
- Manage a single consistent identity service.
- Establish citizen profiles and appropriate citizen journeys.
- Track the progress of requests and transactions.
- Stream communications across channels.
- Offer more personalized and accessible experiences.
- Make up-to-date information and data about state services available online.
For CIOs, the challenge is determining the most efficient way to systematically overhaul large agencies such as revenue and transportation (road and rail) to improve their digital service delivery and experiences. They may invest in a Center of Excellence (COE) to bring new digital services and experiences online under a common identity service and design experience (starting in Figma) while supporting the personalization of multiple services, content, and processes. The good news is that this is entirely possible with HCL’s Total Experience (TX) platform.
One of the critical elements of a total experience strategy is the ability to personalize your digital value-add as part of a predefined citizen journey and profile. By doing so, agencies can foster increased engagement, service adoption, and citizen satisfaction—a win-win for both the citizen and the agency. While the industry has had the tools to make this happen for some time, personalization is often applied only to CX-driven marketing offers and web content. However, the potential value of leveraging a profile and journey concept to enrich and redefine any industry’s engagement model based on a CDP and AI is enormous for citizens (CX) and the workforce (EX).
So, let’s delve deeper into some of the aspects of TX that CIOs should consider:
Establish a modern data fabric (or mesh): Implement a data fabric that makes it easier for new digital services to interoperate and exchange data with the existing infrastructure. New solutions can tap into all relevant information, processes, and COTS using modern standards “as a service.” This fabric establishes common patterns for API management, service orchestration, and governance, allowing agencies to choose their experience composition tools, whether no-code, low-code, or pro-code. The compelling reasons to use no-code and low-code solutions include speed, reusability and maintainability—resulting in less code.
Deliver an eGov digital identity service with a Citizen Data Platform (CDP): Whether tapping into a federally provided service (a country-wide initiative) or a state-level system based on residents rather than citizens and permanent residents, the eGov initiative should provide identity, credential, and access management used by all online agencies. This simplifies access, manages preferences for opt-in communications and identifies favourite services. This can be accomplished using a Citizen Data Platform that starts from a unique citizen profile (their ID and those of the household) and defines citizen journies for significant life events that new eGov digital services can support.
Understanding your citizen’s experience: Gaining better experience insight drives better design, which drives better engagement and citizen satisfaction. For example, it is invaluable to know that 70% of your users for a specific service are using iOS devices or pinpointing where they struggle with your digital services. This insight allows for correcting issues or continuously improving the User Experience (UX) for maximum adoption using GenAI.
Embrace reusable technologies: The plug-and-play capability of reusable third-party packaged business components (PBC), such as a payment service within a modular TX platform framework, can help governments develop affordable solutions faster. A TX platform requires a common data fabric for all service management, a reusable platform for creating and integrating third-party components, and front-end-as-service composition (FEaaS) tools for practitioners and professional developers alike. This approach significantly improves both the speed and flexibility of service delivery. The alternative—a reliance on fragile pro-code solutions—often leads to missed deadlines, inflexibility, and high maintenance costs.
Harness the Super/MicrosApps revolution: Rather than investing in multiple discrete mobile apps, consider the well-established concept of a “Super app.” Gartner defines a SuperApp as a forward-thinking solution that consolidates and replaces multiple individual apps for customer or employee use while supporting a composable business ecosystem. For example, a SuperApp could deliver a state’s tailored services as a micro-app portfolio, such as child support services, license plate renewals and in-app personalized notifications. This single tooling approach works for both agency and appropriately sanctioned third-party micro-apps, which can be delivered incrementally within a common UX, authentication, and notification framework with deep native device functionality, such as Mixed Reality.
By integrating these strategies (and others), government agencies can effectively modernize their digital services, making them more accessible, efficient, and responsive to the needs of their citizens and employees alike. I will share some of our fantastic eGov use case examples in the next blog.