Over half of digital govt initiatives failing to scale, expand reach: Gartner

Despite having a digital push and increased investments, 55% of digital government programmes are failing to scale up and increase their reach, according to a report by market research firm Gartner. 

The survey comprised respondents from 166 government organisations between April and May 2021.  

At least 10% of respondents said that they were at the early stages of experimenting or deploying citizen facing digital services, while only 5% felt that they were at the top of the maturity scale.   

“Digital government programs have accelerated during the pandemic and attracted more investment, yet many governments are still struggling to translate this into results at scale,” said Dean Lacheca, senior research director at Gartner. 

“Citizens expect results, they are not interested in effort,” added Lacheca. 

In the survey, 45% said that they were developing the IT infrastructure while some digital solutions were being used in the end-to-end processes. 21% said that all critical service delivery areas were making extensive use of digital solutions, while 19% claimed that there was widespread use of digital solutions across all parts of the organisation. 

The survey said that 24% of the government organisations were classified as digitally advanced, delivering fully to their digital initiatives and optimising existing practices. 

“These digitally advanced government organisations are realizing more of the benefits, such as higher efficiency, cost reductions, greater workforce productivity, compliance and transparency,” said Lacheca. 

85% of these digitally advanced respondents claimed to use digital solutions extensively across their organisations. 

While some organisations have benefitted from a sustained-long term effort at their digital commitments, 

Other governments have made progress by establishing a balanced digital agenda, giving equal weightage for transformational and optimisation services.