We often hear the term “Digital Transformation” nowadays.
What digital transformation means? DT or digital transformation is making organizations, governments, politics, etc. to take services such as customer services or IT business processes to the next level. This era of digital transformation began back in the late 1990’s. It is continuously evolving, and has impacted our living and working styles in ways we never imagined. The internet of things, cloud computing, Virtual reality, AR, block chain etc., are factors leading to digital transformation.
Digital Transformation is:
Utilizing latest technologies with company’s assets and data to enhance products, services, business processes and decision-making capabilities of organizations, thereby improve efficiency and increase monetization options.
Digital Transformation Case Study: Government of Canada
The government of Canada’s strategic planning process has undergone a 3rd iteration to “Digital Operations Strategic Plan”. This plan gives insights to the government’s move towards digital transformation. This plan defines activities performed by various government departments to promote digital government and improve service delivery.
The Chief Information Officer of Canada says that the Government focuses to achieve user centered, collaborative and digitally enabled public services.
But what influenced the Canadian Government to adopt DT? Earlier the services used to be analogous in nature such as paper-based applications, and post mails which lead to longer wait times causing very slow processes. With the rise in the number of computers, mobiles, tablets, there has been a drastic change in how people communicate. It has led to real time data updates, instant access to information and many more. The computers have become more powerful, the unlimited internet availability and low costs of data storage has led to exponential growth in data. New technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence along with advanced low-cost data storage has enabled new products. The big data analysis is helping improve service delivery methods and audit management.
To adopt to the new technologies, necessary training to build, manage, and procure the tools will be required. Adopting the ways to work in a digital world, the government has charted out some digital standards to follow. Some practices encouraged by the government for groups involved in designing digital transformation policies are:
Working with more iterative methods
Directly involve end users
Encourage use of open source software
Implement privacy and security measures
Collaborative Working Environment etc.
Role of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Transformation
Artificial Intelligence is the ability of machines to work intelligently like human beings. To implement AI requires analysis of how human brain works, learns and thinks. Using the results the machines are programmed to create intelligent machines. Some applications of AI is gaming, expert systems, speech and handwriting recognition.
How did the Government of Canada adopt Artificial Intelligence? An Example : Government of Canada adopted artificial intelligence technology to design Online Service Request Portal. With AI the portal gives access to summary of information requested by users based on previous user requests. The portal also provides electronic payment and transfer of request to different federal institutions. With Automation and Artificial Intelligence, the government is now able to provide services faster and more efficiently. The scalability of data storage, data processing resources is helping utilize these resources to the optimum.
But, It is also mandatory to assess the impact of these services on the other areas such as population, and compatibility with law. For this impact assessment, frameworks are developed to understand and mitigate the risks associate with artificial intelligence.
Future of Digital Transformation
It is very clear that Digital Transformation will change our global economy to make it better. Many organizations will alter their ecosystems, and new user models will be implemented. These companies will thrive to find out innovative ways to success. So, now is a good time to acquire skills of new emerging technologies. Also, plan to embed these technologies in traditional business process model and take advantage of this transformation.
As per International Data Corporation (IDC),
“By 2020, 50% of the Global 2000 will see the majority of their business depend on their ability to create digitally-enhanced products, services, and experiences”
“By 2020, 67% of all enterprise IT infrastructure and software spending will be for cloud-based offerings”.