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Making government services more people-centric is not a new aspiration, but with fast advances in technology and rising societal expectations, public sector senior leaders are re-imagining how to deliver on that promise.

Since the inception of e-government in the early 2000s (later also known as smart government and digital government), making services available through digital channels became a critical instrument to improve citizen and business experience, as well as to attract investors and tourists, and collaborate with across government entities. These initiatives yielded results in terms of operational efficiency, convenience for and engagement with constituents.

Notwithstanding the progress, siloed processes and systems, forcing people and businesses to experience time-consuming bureaucratic services, and inequality of access to e-government services are still open issues.

Public sector leaders that aim to usher in the next generation of the people-centric services should understand people’s and businesses’ needs and circumstances through intelligent use of data, simplifying and joining up services across programs, partnering with the private sector, making digital services more inclusive, and enabling trusted interactions to make the bureaucracy truly “invisible”.

Reimagining Service Delivery, Operating and Trust Models

Making government bureaucracy invisible means embracing technology-powered innovation to drive proactive operations that will deliver seamless services for empowered people and businesses:

  • Service delivery model. The next generation of invisible services will be seamless. Constituents (citizens, businesses, investors, tourists, etc.) will not realize that public services are being delivered. They will not be asked to interact with the government to know what services they are entitled to or be interrupted in their daily routine because they receive a request to provide data to prove changes in circumstances.
  • Operating model. The next generation of invisible operations will be proactive. Without intruding into people’s and businesses’ daily lives, the government will know enough to understand the events that impact constituents and changes in circumstances. Governments will proactively register constituents for programs that they are entitled to and automatically deliver services.
  • Trust model. The next generation of invisible bureaucracy will shift from enforcement to empowerment. Instead of enforcing compliance after the fact, the government will make compliance easy for constituents through automated, proactive services, and simplified regulations. Government will invest in digital trust through proactive, transparent personalized notifications, and tools to see how personal data is being used across departments.

The Road to Invisible Government Bureaucracy

To accelerate the road towards Invisible Government Bureaucracy, public sector senior leaders should implement changes around the six building blocks:

  1. Building a holistic view of people, businesses, and communities. To avoid asking for the same data again and again, to understand when a change in circumstances offers an opportunity for the government to proactively deliver a service, and to empower open engagement, governments are investing to build a 360° view of people, businesses, communities.
  2. Scaling cognitive processes and services. Governments need to re-engineer processes and embed AI-enabled cognitive capabilities into systems so that they can recognize changes in the circumstances of their constituents, identify root causes and trigger operational workflows or dynamically reconfigure services and programs to satisfy the evolving constituent needs.
  3. Designing and delivering people-centric experience journeys. Increasingly, people will expect to interact with systems through conversational interfaces that can recognize their language, accent, tone of voice, instead of having to scroll through screens and fill forms. Cognitive capabilities will be embedded in every touch points throughout the user experience journey.
  4. Ensuring accessibility and inclusion for all. The non-intrusive and proactive nature of the invisible government bureaucracy will also enhance inclusion by lowering accessibility the barriers. However, as conversational and generative AI, immersive reality solutions become more pervasive, they must be designed with accessibility in mind.
  5. Investing in next-generation trust services. The public sector should invest in digital trust tools that enable citizens to conveniently access digital services across government, without having to remember multiple login credentials. Such tools will help citizens have a transparent understanding on how government use personal data and opt-in or opt-out of data sharing.
  6. Expanding collaboration with third parties. Government are working with private enterprises and community organizations to enable constituents to enjoy the lowest possible number of interactions with the government, to eliminate duplicate request for personal data, and the best possible convenience and proximity when those interactions are needed.

The latest IDC Government Insights study explores how to adapt organizational capacity and competencies, revisit policies, work with the ecosystem, and ensure public trust, to make Invisible Government Bureaucracy a reality.

Massimiliano Claps - Research Director - IDC

Analyst Profile
Massimiliano (Max) Claps is the research director for the Worldwide National Government Platforms and Technologies research in IDC's Government Insights practice. In this role, Max provides research and advisory services to technology suppliers and national civilian government senior leaders in the US and globally. Specific areas of research include improving government digital experiences, data and data sharing, AI and automation, cloud-enabled system modernization, the future of government work, and data protection and digital sovereignty to drive social, economic, and environmental outcomes for agencies and the public.

Strong Headwinds Disrupting the Built Environment Industries

The built environment sector is often seen as a laggard in productivity and technology adoption. However, this is changing: the strong headwinds of the last few years have forced companies to evolve and innovate.

The pandemic led to widespread supply chain shocks felt acutely by the construction sector and with geopolitical tensions increasing, including in the Red Sea, this issue is here to stay. Covid-19 also led to one of the largest shake ups in the real estate industry with significant drops in office occupancy rates in the move back to hybrid work.

While occupancy rates are recovering, they are not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels. Add to this potent mix, the energy crisis and increasing ESG targets and regulatory requirements.

PropTech Companies Are Injecting Innovation

Property technology (PropTech) companies are injecting much-needed innovation into the industry and driving significant changes across building life cycles from design to construction, operation, maintenance, and demolition. We have published a PropTech Innovator Report highlighting 3 Innovate companies that are providing transformative solutions across the built environment sector.

In line with the AI era,  which IDC refers to as to as AI Everywhere, each Innovator highlighted in the report is leveraging AI in their solutions.

Our research highlights that the top priorities for built environment executives are improving operational efficiency and cost reduction, enhancing environmental sustainability and improving resilience to climatic hazards. Organizations are increasingly applying technology to help support these business objectives.

For example, to meet their sustainability goals, 66% of real estate companies are investing in data and analytics including AI, and 61% are investing in space and workplace technology (IDC’s Sustainable Buildings, Homes, and Districts Survey, 2023, n = 654).

Announcing IDC’s “Worldwide PropTech Innovators, 2023”

The PropTech companies highlighted in the Innovator span the building lifecycle and reflect the diverse range of companies encapsulated in this market. The first innovator — nPlan — is changing the way in which major projects can be planned, designed, and monitored through an AI-enabled software solution drawing on over 750,000 project schedules. The second — Skandal — is providing IoT driven lighting displays that respond to building inhabitants to improve occupant experience and promote behavioral change. Finally, Xandar Kardian’s solution monitors occupant motion through the innovative use of radar technology and can also monitor resting heart rate and respiratory rate for applications in health and social care facilities.

IDC is developing further Innovator reports focused on innovation in the built environment so please get in contact if you are an SME and meet the eligibility criteria – jdignan@idc.com lbarker@idc.com

You may also be interested in:

Industry Partnerships for the Built Environment: Architectural, Engineering, and Construction Companies; Commercial Real Estate Companies; and Tech Vendors

Top Priorities for RFIs in Government Built-Environment Projects: Results from IDC’s 2023 Worldwide Sustainable Buildings, Homes, and Districts Survey

River Cities: Using Technology and Smart City Thinking to Instrument Rivers

Louisa Barker - Senior Research Manager, IDC Government Insights, Europe - IDC

Analyst Profile
Louisa Barker is a senior research manager in the European IDC Government Insights team, leading research on smart, sustainable, and resilient cities and communities. She has international experience providing analysis, policy advice, and consultancy to the public sector on disaster risk management, urban building and planning regulation, and smart cities. Previous roles have included Urban Resilience Consultant at the World Bank, focused on projects in the Caribbean and East Africa, and as a researcher at technology and innovation accelerators such as the Future Cities Catapult and the University College London City Leadership Laboratory. She is also a Specialist Advisor to the International Building Quality Centre.

Globally, cities are rediscovering the importance of their rivers as a central tenet of the health, wellbeing, and economy of a city. A river was often, if not always, the reason for a city to develop and grow, but during the 20th century city, authorities began to focus primarily on the built environment and to see water management as a less important sub issue of city management.

With the rise of environmental awareness in the 21st century, cities are beginning to relook at the interrelationship between the built environment and their rivers. We have been tracking this new direction through their research on River Cities and how technology now allows us to instrument both water and the built environment in concert.

According to our research, 28% of local governments across EMEA are already investing in smart rivers with an additional 29% considering investing in the future (IDC Survey, December 2023).

The French are Reclaiming their Rivers

France is emerging as a leader in this process, and the clearest example of this will be the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.

Paris is the most visited city in the world, and it is impossible to imagine Paris without picturing the Seine. Olympic opening ceremonies are historically held in a stadium, but France will be using the banks of the Seine for the ceremony to increase participation and celebrate the special relationship between the river and the city.

The Digital Twin Project

A further French example of this new thinking is captured in a recently published IDC Perspective Building a River Digital Twin: A Case Study of the Port de Bordeaux. This document provides an overview of a project led by the Port de Bordeaux, an entity managing marine activities across Bordeaux and the Gironde Estuary.

The objective of the project is to create a digital twin of the Estuary – the largest Estuary in Western Europe covering around 635 km2. The Gironde Estuary is formed from the meeting of the rivers of Dordogne and Garonne and spans several cities, the main one being Bordeaux with more than 250k residents. The Port de Bordeaux manages 7 terminals is the 7th largest French port in terms of traffic.

The digital twin was built to help project participants in both their day-day tactical decision-making process (for example, information on water levels, pollution and navigation) as well as addressing longer-term and strategic challenges (adaptation and impacts of climate change). The Port de Bordeaux developed 8 core goals for the digital twin project:

  • Sharing and developing knowledge of the river.
  • Promoting the exchange of data and operational results.
  • Anticipating the effects of climate change.
  • Identifying mitigation solutions.
  • Developing economic, recreational and tourism opportunities.
  • Preserving biodiversity and environmental wealth.
  • Developing coastal and river surveillance (alert systems).
  • Fostering replicability of the platform on other rivers.

 

An innovative aspect of this project is that the project team looked beyond environmental challenges to a broader set of objectives, including, for example, economic and recreational activities. This approach is centred on the view of a river as a complex ecosystem of different stakeholders and an integral part of the identity of the region. The project has a wide target audience, and the use cases, outputs and goals were co-created with the relevant stakeholders at the design stage.

Digital twins are at an early stage of adoption for rivers and marine environments. However, the application of technologies to the blue economy is increasing.

We predict that, by 2027, threatened by water scarcity and extreme weather, 40% of large cities will have digital twins of their water resources to manage water supply, quality, resilience and behavioural change (IDC Smart Cities and Communities 2023 Futurescape).

The Port de Bordeaux is an early adopter and can provide a model and blueprint for others to follow as a core principle of the project was making as many aspects as possible open source. Local stakeholders can upload their own data and use the GIROS platform to visualize their results. This supports a broader community of users being able to take advantage of the model.

Crucially, the Bordeaux project team intentionally designed the solution to be replicable on other rivers; while the numerical model for the Gironde is geographically specific, the framework and architecture of the solution is being made publicly available.

We are soon to publish our first Tech Innovator report on companies involved in rivers and water management and are keen to hear of innovative technology solutions and case studies involving river management for future reports so please do get in touch with us jdignan@idc.com, lbarker@idc.com, rletemple@idc.com

Remi Letemple - Senior Research Analyst, IDC Government Insights - IDC

Analyst Profile
Remi Letemple leads IDC’s Worldwide Sustainable Transportation and Smart Vehicles Strategies service, where he provides strategic guidance and thought leadership on the future of mobility and transportation. Operating at a global level, he is recognized as a subject matter expert in smart mobility and transportation technologies—including connected, autonomous, shared, and electric mobility—enabled by software-defined vehicle (SDV) architectures, over-the-air (OTA) updates, cloud and edge platforms, and AI, including generative AI.