UXBRIDGE, U.K., March. 01, 2016 – Public sector organisations are jumping head-first into the digital future, with 66 percent of senior IT decision-makers predicting their core business processes will be fully digitised by 2018.
Xerox’s report, “Digitisation at Work” gathered feedback from 200 IT leads in large public sector organisations across North America and Western Europe, and found they are embracing digital processes in the areas of product development, invoicing, customer engagement, HR onboarding and contract development.
More than half (58 percent) of respondents believe that digital transformation will increase the speed of processes and 50 percent feel it will improve productivity.
This digital evolution is due to a general concern over paper-based processes within the public sector. Nearly two thirds of respondents (54 percent) are issuing contracts and running procurement processes on paper, rather than using digital alternatives. Yet close to half (43 percent) believe paper processes are too costly and 41 percent believe they are a data security risk.
Consequently, only six percent of public sector respondents firmly believe that all of their processes will be run on paper in the next two years.
The evolution of automation
Public sector executives are also focusing on how workflow can be improved with process automation. Nearly two thirds (65%) of respondents believe they have identified functions that would benefit from automation, including expense reporting (42 percent), accounting (38 percent) and customer relations (29 percent).
“Collecting and managing data in a central, digital location often reveals hidden opportunities for automation that represents both service innovation and immediate cost savings,” said Andy Jones, vice president, Workflow Automation, Large Enterprise Operations at Xerox. “Every process in government – from HR onboarding to customer communication – creates an enormous amount of data that can be continually analysed and assessed to uncover insights on performance trends and inefficiencies.”
The crucial first step
More than half (55 percent) of public sector respondents admit half of their processes are largely still paper-based.
According to the study, public sector organisations have yet to fully embrace three steps:
- 43 percent have not yet implemented solutions for the mobile workforce
- 49 percent have not yet added or improved cloud services
- 48 percent have not yet incorporated or improved predictive analysis through big data
“Overall, it’s very important that public sector organisations develop a plan that outlines the necessary steps they must take to successfully transform processes,” said Jones. “They are focused on transitioning from paper-based to digital workflows. However they must remember it’s a significant change that takes time and carefully chosen partnerships to make the transition as seamless as possible, and ensures buy-in from every level of the organisation.”
Xerox has introduced workflow automation services as part of its managed print services offering to lead the way to greater productivity and digital transformation. The company is also developing automation tools throughout its portfolio to support its full line of business – including customer care centres, finance and accounting processes and the healthcare sector.
About the Study
In the second half of 2015, Coleman Parkes Research surveyed 600 IT decision-makers and influencers from organisations in the United States and Canada, as well as Western Europe (Benelux, France, Germany, UK). This research activity was designed to understand their attitudes, challenges and initiatives in relations to digital transformation and paper-intensive processes.
All respondents had responsibilities that included digital technology strategy, solutions and infrastructure.
Industries covered were public sector, financial services and corporate enterprise.
The full Xerox report on the study can be downloaded from here: https://www.xerox.co.uk/en-gb/services/managed-print/insights/digital-transformation
About Xerox
Xerox is helping change the way the world works. By applying our expertise in imaging, business process, analytics, automation and user-centric insights, we engineer the flow of work to provide greater productivity, efficiency and personalisation. We conduct business in 180 countries, and our more than 140,000 employees create meaningful innovations and provide business process services, printing equipment, software and solutions that make a real difference for our clients – and their customers. Learn more at www.xerox.com.
-XXX-
Media Contacts:
Sonia Panchal, Xerox
+44 (0)1895 84 2877
sonia.panchal@xerox.com
Note: To receive RSS news feeds, visit http://news.xerox.com. For open commentary, industry perspectives and views visit http://twitter.com/xerox, http://www.linkedin.com/company/xerox, http://simplifywork.blogs.xerox.com, http://www.facebook.com/XeroxCorp or http://www.youtube.com/XeroxCorp.
Xerox® and Xerox and Design® are trademarks of Xerox in the United States and/or other countries.