Citizen-centric government lies in the data

These days, it's common for government employees to waste huge amounts of time searching for documents that have been badly categorised or sometimes even incorrectly categorised or not categorised at all. Over and above this resulting in inefficient work processes and time wastage, it leaves governmental bodies vulnerable to dissatisfaction and fraud if they are unable to timeously produce or access electronically stored information when asked to do so.

Gerald Naidoo

Managing data

Gerald Naidoo, CEO of Logikal Consulting says the longer these entities go without a proper enterprise content management (ECM) solution, the worse off they will be, the more they will expose themselves, and the more costs they will incur.

"A comprehensive, dedicated ECM solution will help government bodies manage their structured and unstructured data, and help them more effectively utilise their data as well as their resources. This may sound too good to be true, but ECM can become, in reality, the basis upon which these institutions can become compliant with various regulations, and be able to comply with all requests for information."

When choosing an ECM solution, Ravi Bhat, COO at Logikal Consulting, advises government organisations to look for one that has several elements. "It must be able to capture and manage all types of content, easily and simply. It must satisfy all compliance requirements, and have the ability to streamline business processes. Another important element is the ability to provide high scalability and information availability, and it should be able to work out of the box with no extensive modifications needed. Lastly it should offer an intuitive interface."

Content management, document retrieval, regulations, compliance, privacy - all of these things can be simplified with ECM and a single version of the truth, he explains. It is Naidoo's view that it is high time South African government departments started looking at this type of solution.

Photo via FreeDigitalPhotos

Improving efficiency

"There are so many cases where documents are improperly managed. Instead of looking at a smart card, Home Affairs should be looking at ECM, as these solutions are key to governments offering citizen-centric services. ECM is a valuable tool for SARS, municipalities and similar, all of whom have different versions of the truth. Why do we have different authentication requirements in different areas, when ECM enables a simpler view? This doesn't apply only to government departments, but any large organisation - banks could benefit from ECM equally."

Bhat adds that ECM solutions such as IBM's Filenet deliver content in context to fully harness its potential. "These solutions can capture, activate, share, analyse and govern unstructured data to lower costs and risk while improving efficiency."

"As the volume and amount of data and content swells to unmanageable proportions, organisations of all types and sizes are battling to use this data effectively. Recent research revealed that 73% of CEOs are making significant investments in their organisations' ability to draw meaningful customer insights from the data that is available. ECM offers a way for government and business to discover the content, recognise its value, and most importantly to act upon it to gain better businesses insight and more actionable outcomes."

He adds that while South African government organisations need secured solutions, they also need turnkey solutions which can drive significant efficiencies in 30, 60, or 90 days. "Long gone are the days where projects can afford to take 12-24 months. Organisations are looking at immediate returns. Furthermore, to address the skills shortage in the country, service providers should ensure that skill transfers are included in all projects."