THEMATIC PAPER

CREATING DIGITAL
STRATEGIES

Employment, AUGUST 2018

Social Affairs
and Inclusion
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
Directorate B – Employment
Unit B1 – Employment Strategy

Contact: Jean-Pierre Callais

E-mail: EMPL-PES-SECRETARIAT@ec.europa.eu
European Commission
B-1049 Brussels

The European Network of Public Employment Services was created following a Decision of the European Parliament and Council in June
2014 1 (DECISION No 573/2014/EU). Its objective is to reinforce PES capacity, effectiveness and efficiency. This activity has been developed
within the work programme of the European PES Network. For further information: http://ec.europa.eu/social/PESNetwork

This activity has received financial support from the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation ‘EaSI’ (2014-2020).
For further information please consult: http://ec.europa.eu/social/easi

LEGAL NOTICE
This document has been prepared for the European Commission however it reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

DECISION No 573/2014/EU
1
THEMATIC PAPER

CREATING DIGITAL
STRATEGIES

Written by Willem Pieterson, Centre for eGovernment Studies

AUGUST 2018
 5

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 6

2. DIGITALISATION AND DIGITAL STRATEGIES 8

2.1 Technological developments 8

2.2 Digitalisation and maturity 12

2.3 Mission, vision & strategy 16

2.4 Digital strategies & transformation 19

3. DEVELOPING & IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL STRATEGIES 23

3.1 Barriers & challenges 27

4. MEASURING SUCCESS 29

4.1 Goals & use of data 29

5. CONCLUSIONS 34

6. REFERENCES 36

APPENDIX 1: OECD (2014) STEPS 38

6

1. INTRODUCTION
‘Digital implies more than just technology or content. It is about people.’ 2

Digital technologies have been used by public employment services (PES) for about half a century now.
In the 1960s the first mainframe computers arrived to first support processing and computational work.
Ever since, the developments in the digital domain have gone quickly; after mainframe computing came
the personal computer (in the 1980s), allowing case-workers to process and administer cases much faster
and more effectively. In the 1990s came networks and the Internet, followed by the era of mobile comput-
ing. The importance of technology has increased drastically during these 50 years and one could say that
technology is now ubiquitous within most organisations and PES are no exception.

The introduction of most technologies has led to great benefits for PES and their clients and many hail its
future potential. For example, one analysis (Dilmegani, Korkmaz & Lundqvist, 2014) suggests that ‘capturing
the full potential of government digitization could free up to $1 trillion annually in economic value worldwide,
through improved cost and operational performance.’ The European Commission estimates that at the EU
level, a 'digital by default' strategy could save between €6.5 and €10 billion annually (Directorate-General
for Parliamentary Research Services, 2015).

But every (round of) innovation has also faced its obstacles and challenges. Large IT projects have often
been plagued by cost and time overruns, resistance and lack of skills from employees and clients have led
to rejection of certain technologies and while many new technologies have been adopted by majorities in
the various populations, old ways of working die hard and many ‘traditional’ methods (e.g. paper forms, in
person meetings, manual processing of certain cases) persist.

Furthermore, the accumulation of several generations of technologies has created a complicated web of
infrastructures and systems that are becoming increasingly complicated to manage and maintain. As such
these ‘legacies’ could hinder future progress and even pose risks for the organisation.

It does, however, not end here. It is expected that the role of technology will increase even more in the
future. The Internet of Things (IoT) and ongoing miniaturisation will enable computers to be put in a magni-
tude of devices, potentially altering processes and services. Robotisation could lead to new types of services
channels. New technologies allow for further automation of processes that could lead to caseworker obso-
lescence and radically change the environment in which PES operate and severely impact labour markets.

Some argue that the speed of technological innovation is accelerating, meaning that the pressure on PES to
digitalise even more in the future will only increase. Furthermore, the increasing speed of change will impact
societies and is likely to influence the PES organisation as a whole. Developments like working ‘agile’ and us-
ing (big) data to inform decision making are part of this and are slowly forcing government, PES no exception,
to rethink not only what their role in society is, but also how they organise and operate in future time.

Addressing these issues lies at the core of PES digital strategies. Digital becomes increasingly important in
society as a whole. Current organisational models (silos) and legacy hamper PES’ abilities to successfully
adopt a ‘digital’ mindset and lastly, developments force PES to rethink how they keep up in the future. Thus,
having a digital strategy becomes increasingly important. More so, given the degree to which ‘digital’ is
woven into the organisation, the digital strategy is becoming an increasingly important strategy and part of
the organisational strategy as a whole. While this is relevant for all PES within the EU, it seems especially
relevant for those PES who are in the early stages of their digital development.

2 Ministry of Public Administration (2017) e-Croatia 2020 strategy

 7

A Thematic Review Workshop (TRW) on ‘Being digitally strategic’, took place in Tallinn on 12 and 13 April
2018. The TRW was hosted by the Estonian PES under the Work Programme of the European Network of
Public Employment Services. This thematic paper builds on the discussions of the TRW, and in this paper we
discuss the role of a digital strategy for PES. We focus on a number of interrelated questions:

1) What are digital strategies?

a) Why are they important and how do they fit into current and future technological developments?
b) How do they tie into the mission, vision and other strategies of PES?

2) How to create and implement digital strategies?

a) What are the main challenges and obstacles?

3) How to measure success?

a) How to create Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and measure against the progress of goals?

These questions guide the structure of this thematic paper. In the second chapter we focus on the broader
topic of digitalisation, and discuss definitions of digital strategies and connect these to the mission, vision
and strategies of PES. In the third chapter we focus in more detail on the creation and implementation of
digital strategies. In the fourth chapter we discuss the role of data and measurement. Subsequently, in chap-
ter five, we draw our main conclusions and give recommendations to PES.

This thematic paper builds upon several other publications created as part of the PES Network
programme in recent years. The following are relevant and can serve as background and/or
additional reading.

2016
Analytical Paper | Establishing and Operating Performance Management in PES
Analytical Paper | Modernising PES through supportive Data and IT strategies
Practitioner’s toolkit | To assist PES with the development of customer satisfaction
measurement systems
Practitioner’s toolkit | Being Smart with Data, using Innovative Solutions
Practitioner’s toolkit | Performance Management in PES

2017
Analytical Paper | Performance, Accountability, and links with benchlearning
Analytical Paper | Multi-Channel Management in PES: From Blending to Omni-Channeling
8

2. DIGITALISATION AND
DIGITAL STRATEGIES
In this second chapter we focus on the concepts of digitalisation and digital strategies.
In section 2.1 we discuss the main historical and important current technological develop-
ments. Next (section 2.2), we discuss government and PES approaches towards these devel-
opments and models describing maturity of digital governments. In section 2.3 we tie these
models into the broader missions, visions and strategies of governments and PES. In the last
section (2.4) we then specifically discuss digital strategies and give examples from PES.

2.1 Technological developments infrastructure planning, the taxi branch, transpor-

tation sectors and so on. Something similar could
The perfection of the steam engine in 1781 is seen happen in service sectors due to automation. While
by many as the start of the modern industrial and (mechanical) robots and machines have replaced
technological era. Beforehand technological innova- blue collar work since the first industrial revolution,
tion was slow and diffusion of these innovations white collar work has remained relatively unaf-
was even slower. The steam engine not only al- fected. This however, could change. Machines are
lowed to mechanise processes that were previ- becoming more intelligent and are increasingly
ously labour driven, the application of the steam suited to make decisions based on existing data
engine in transportation allowed the spread of this that are more accurate than decisions made by hu-
and subsequent innovations to gain speed. Schwab mans. Put in the context of PES, parts of (common)
(2016) labels this period the first industrial revolu- PES processes are changing rapidly and could
tion and he argues three more industrial revolutions become automated in the future. Activities such as
followed: unemployment registration, profiling and matching
are increasingly automated without need for any
●● The second industrial revolution in the late caseworker intervention. As a result, not only might
19th century was driven by the invention fewer caseworkers be needed, but their workload
of electricity, the combustion engine, and shifts from being oriented on data-processing to-
the assembly line. wards counselling. The shift towards client self-ser-
●● The third industrial revolution began vice and process automation implies that the PES
in the 1960s and followed the advent of the future will look very different from the
of semiconductors, mainframes, PCs PES of today (and the past).
and the Internet.
●● The fourth industrial revolution is currently Besides the impact that technologies had and are
in motion and is based on a much more having, it is important to realise that technologi-
ubiquitous internet, mobile technologies, cal developments are going faster and faster. This
miniaturisation of computers, (big) data is illustrated by two points; the actual (exponen-
and artificial intelligence. tial) speed of technological development and the
speed with which our globalised and interconnected
Since the third industrial revolution, many innova- worlds are adopting technological innovations.
tions have a digital nature. To separate this from
previous phases of technological innovation, char-
acterised by mechanical transformation, Brynjolfs-
son and McAfee (2016) argue that we are in a ‘sec-
ond machine age’ and they argue that the world
is awaiting a period of unprecedented change in
which digital technologies will manifest themselves
in full force through, among others robotisation and
automation. For example, self-driving vehicles have
the potential to disrupt not just the automotive
industry, but also how people commute, city and
 9

T E C H N O LO G I C A L P R O G R E S S : I L L U S T R AT I O N S

Moore’s Law

Moore’s law, named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, observes and predicts that the number
of transistors on a chip doubles (roughly) every 18-24 months. This implies that:

1. Computers become twice as powerful roughly every two years.

2. Chips with the same capacity halve in price roughly every two years.

The doubling creates an exponential effect; a chip from 2018 will have 64 times the computational
power of a chip from just 10 years ago. Some label this rapid growth the phenomenon of ‘exponential
technologies’. Some argue that the rate of innovation is going so quickly that it is increasingly hard for
organisations to keep up with all changes.

Adoption of innovations3

ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE US 1900 TO THE PRESENT

100 %
Telephone
ADOPTION RATES %

Electricity
Cars
80 % Radio
Fridge
TV
Air Travel
60 % Color TV
Credit Card
Microwave
Video Games
40 %
PC
Cell Phone
Internet
20 % Digital Camera
MP3 Player
HDTV
Social Media
0% Smartphone
Tablet
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Source: BlackRock

The figure above shows the time it took for fractions of US households to adopt certain technologies.
While it took the telephone (landline) about a century to reach saturation levels, smartphones did this
in about 5 years.

The same applies to applications; while it took YouTube 4 years to reach 50 million users, Pokémon Go
achieved the same feat in just 19 days.

3 Based on https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/the-rising-speed-of-technological-adoption
10

So what’s different? According to Schwab (2016), in real time) and b) advances in analytics and al-
the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ is characterised by: gorithms that provide valuable outcomes. Advanced
analytics, for example, can be used by PES to pre-
●● Velocity. As opposed to previous changes, this dict unemployment time (as done by BE-VDAB), but
one is evolving at exponential, rather than also to feed into robots. Several PES are planning
linear speed. to implement or experiment with social robots (see
●● Breadth and Depth. This revolution builds Pieterson, 2017) based on advanced analytics such
upon previous revolutions and is characterised as machine learning and/or artificial intelligence.
by the combination of technologies that will
lead to drastic shifts in the economy, business, Automation and robotisation
society, and individually.
●● Systems Impact. It entails the transformation Advances in hardware and software allow for auto-
of entire societies (instead of segments), mation of work. While industrial robots have been
across and within countries, systems, in use since the second half of the 20th century,
companies, industries, etc. the application of advanced analytics allows for
a shift of merely replacing ‘blue collar’ work with
The technological developments manifest them- automated systems to ‘white collar’ work as well.
selves in two ways for PES: The first is a changing According to many studies, automation could se-
environment in which PES operate. For example; verely disrupt labour markets, with the more ex-
large scale robotisation could lead to massive un- treme studies suggesting that up to 47 % of all US
employment and thus increasing PES’ workloads. jobs could be replaced by automated systems or ro-
The second is how PES use technologies themselves bots in the coming decades (Osborne & Frey, 2013).
to digitalise their processes and service delivery. For While we don’t expect the replacement of humans
example; robots could also be used by PES in their to be that extreme in short notice, most publications
service delivery processes. agree that automation will have a strong impact on
labour markets, potentially leading to more work for
Building on the analytical paper published in PES and at the same time potentially allowing PES
2016 on ‘Modernising PES through supportive to benefit from automation.
data and IT strategies’, we see the following as
key technological developments that could change Blockchain
PES operations:
Not discussed in the previous Analytical Papers (AP)
(Big) Data is the role of Blockchain, which seems to be a trend-
ing technology in recent times and underpins many
The big data trend has been around for several cryptocurrencies. The blockchain is best described
years now, but that does not imply that it is less as a decentralised ledger of transactions. Transac-
important now. While big data may no longer be tions are seen as a ‘block’ that are stored in a long
a trending topic for many, thinking about the role ‘chain’ of transactions, thus acting as a ledger. The
and potential of data for monitoring, innovation ‘crowd’ processes and verifies each transaction and
and optimisation of processes and services. These each ‘member’ has their own copy of the ledger.
are topics that are still fairly new to many PES, This creates a number of unique characteristics:
although there are wide gaps between more ad-
vanced PES and the laggards in the space. In or- ●● Because of the decentralised nature of
der to gain benefits from data, the data has to be block-chain technologies, there is no central
stored (centrally) and organised in such a way that authority responsible or in charge, thus
it is analysable. These are topics extensively cov- minimising risk of power abuse.
ered in the 2016 analytical paper (Pieterson, 2016). ●● Because of this same nature, committing
fraud becomes increasingly (and virtually
Advanced analytics impossibly) hard.
●● Everybody can access the blockchain to verify
Advanced analytics is an umbrella term we use to transactions, thus providing an extra layer
refer to all kinds of (relatively) novel ways to analyse of security.
data in order to monitor, learn, and predict. Advanced ●● Despite this ability to check transactions, the
analytics rely on a) advances in computational power blockchain is anonymous, thus providing good
that allow to analyse large datasets quickly (often safeguards for the protection of privacy.
 11

Several governments are exploring the possibilities PES who were present at the TRW acknowledge that
of blockchain. For example, the Estonian govern- it is hard for them to keep up with the technologi-
ment is exploring the option to use blockchain tech- cal developments. The survey sent out to PES be-
nologies to store data. More closely related to PES: fore the TRW showed that lack of knowledge about
the UK’s Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) is current technology is a (moderately) important
looking into ways in which blockchain technologies obstacle for 58 % of all PES and this percentage
could be used to register benefits transactions. increases to 72 % of all PES for their knowledge
about newer technologies.
Technologies as platforms
However, it might be needed for PES to start de-
The last development we mention here, that also veloping this knowledge. In a Forrester publication,
did not feature prominently in the previous paper is Gill and VanBoskirk (2016) argue that ‘Digital Dis-
that of technologies as platforms. More and more ruption is Driving Transformation’, i.e. the disruptive
technologies are created as platforms that allow nature of (new) digital technologies will push organ-
users to complete transactions. Examples of well isations, including governments to change. A digi-
known technologies as platforms are ride-sharing tal strategy can help mitigate the disruptive
services (such as Uber) or house-sharing services nature. Although some argue that newer technolo-
(such as AirBnB). Such platforms also exist for work. gies will lead to disruption, we should also not for-
Well known examples are Mechanical Turk (by Ama- get that the adoption of existing digital tools is still
zon) and E-lancing services (such as UpWork). The ongoing. For example: the Directorate-General for
difference between such platforms and traditional Parliamentary Research Services (2015) stressed
labour mediation services (such as LinkedIn, Indeed, the need to keep investing in the improvement of
Monster) is that they mediate directly between existing online services. This recommendation is
(end) customers and workers, instead of mediat- based on a survey of users in selected developed
ing between employers and employees. This could and developing countries in 2013-14. Results show
impact PES, as PES are predominantly mediating that in 2013-2014 one tenth of citizens did trans-
between employers and job-seekers instead of job- actions with governments which were performed
seekers vs. ‘other’ entities providing work. online; they predict that by 2020 one third of trans-
actions will be done online.
An important illustration of the speed of the tech-
nological developments is the discussion that took To conclude this section, it is apparent that techno-
place during the TRW about mobile applications and logical developments are going fast and according
whether PES should jump on the mobile App band- to many those developments are going faster and
wagon. Some countries are developing or preparing faster. Many PES currently lack sufficient knowledge
to develop Apps (see Pieterson, 2017) and others, about current technologies and even more so about
as became clear during the TRW, especially Den- future technologies. To correctly assess the charac-
mark have already abandoned their App activities, teristics and capabilities of new technologies, PES
most importantly because of the need to maintain need to develop the capacity to learn about tech-
Apps for all platforms (Android, iOS, and Windows nologies ahead of time. Furthermore, they need to
Mobile). While productive, and relevant, the discus- be able to successfully adopt these technologies.
sion may become obsolete because of the progress At the same time, while it is relevant to look at new
in technological developments. The advent of Pro- and upcoming technologies, it is equally important
gressive Web Apps (PWAs) could make native Apps to discuss the progress PES are making with the
obsolete in the near future. PWAs are web applica- successful deployment of existing technologies. This
tions that, in essence, are regular web pages, but is the focus of the next section.
can appear to the user just like native Apps. PWAs
combine features offered by most modern brows-
ers with the benefits of a mobile experience. The
clear benefit of PWAs is that it negates the need to
develop and maintain Apps for specific platforms,
while offering more integrated benefits beyond
common web pages.
12

2.2 Digitalisation and maturity The fourth are perspectives on technology and
viewpoints by governments and managers on the
Since the 1960s PES have been working on the role of technology. While most websites initially
incorporation of information and communication were seen as a ‘hobby’ and were often initiated by
technologies in their processes and services. This IT departments without formal role in the organi-
has been a gradual process, for various reasons. sation, this viewpoint changed later as websites
The first is the constantly changing technology proved popular vehicles to transfer information (and
landscape. For example, technologies like the fax later services).
came and went (largely) in the past 50 years. The
second is the maturity of the technologies. Web- These reasons (and others) highlight the complexi-
sites, for example, used to be static pages with ties surrounding technologies, should we use them?
solely text and slightly later images and have now How? Will our clients adopt them? Will they result
evolved to rich applications that allow for interac- in organisational benefits? To guide these devel-
tions and integrated deeply with the underlying opments and aid organisations to manage the
technologies. For a comparison see the websites evolving role of technology, several ‘maturity’
of the Belgian-Flemish PES from 1996 and 2018. models exist that suggest stages in the evolution
of technology.
The third is the progress in adoption and use of
technologies. Certain technologies, while allowing Below are two models showing the different stages
technological advantages, are not being adopted of evolution of electronic government (eGovern-
by users and therefore do not find widespread use. ment). The first is one of the most well-known aca-
For example, in the 1980s several types of video demic models (Layne & Lee, 2001), illustrating how
cassette formats were available and in the end only digitalisation requires integration on different lev-
the VHS format proved the most popular, despite els. Furthermore, it showcases how more advanced
being technically inferior to other available formats4. electronic government is increasingly complex.
Furthermore, as users start adopting technologies, While more recent, the Cap Gemini (right, Singh et
their skills and abilities evolve and they start using al, 2007) illustrates the same points. It focuses on
more advanced features. different types of service interactions, while also
showing the increase in complexity.

Landing pages of the Belgian-Flemish PES website (vdab.be)

1996 2018

4 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war for an interesting read about the so-called videotape wars.
 13

eGovernment Evolution models

Figure 1. Evolution eGovernment (Layne & Lee, 2001).

TECHNOLOGICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL COMPLEXITY

Complex

Horizontal integration
• Systems integrated
across different
functions
Vertical integration • Real one stop shopping
• Local systems linked for citizens
to higher level systems
• Within similar
Transaction functionalities
• Service and forms online
• Working database
supporting online
Catalogue transactions
• Online presence
• Catalogue presentation
• Downloadable forms
Simple

Sparse Integration Complete

Figure 2. eGovernment Maturity (Singh et al, 2007).

100 %
Personalisation
(proactive, automated)

80 %
Transaction
(full electronic
case handing)
60 %
Two-way interaction
(electronic forms)
40 %
One-way interaction
(downloadable forms)
20 %
Information

0%

These complexities not only refer to the techno- 2. One-way interaction: availability of forms in
logical complexities, but even more so to the ca- electronic form for download to a computer,
pabilities of the people, cultural and organizational empty forms can be printed out.
aspects. Models developed by governments them-
selves also exist. Very recently, the Croatian govern- 3. Two-way communication: filling out interac-
ment (Ministry of Public Administration, 2017) de- tive forms and application which includes au-
veloped a maturity model as part of the ‘e-Croatia thentication, a service is launched by filling
2020 strategy’. The model classifies every e-service out a form.
on a scale from 1 to 5, with the following meaning:
4. Transaction: the entire service is available
1. Information: only information about a ser- online – filling out forms, authentication, pay-
vice is available online (e.g. description of ment and delivery of certificates, placement
a procedure). of orders or other forms of full online service.
14

5. Targeted service (proactivity/automatisation): The key point is that many digitalisation projects
service provision is proactive/automatised in fail simply because governments try to digitalise
such a manner that merely a confirmation or existing projects instead of redesigning the or-
agreement is requested from the user. ganisation around the possibilities of technol-
ogies and the changing demands of their clients.
The Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Indeed, it does appear that some of the more suc-
Services (2015) compared several existing maturity cessful (and digitally advanced) PES exhibit char-
models. Their analysis suggest that some models acteristics similar to successful digital firms. For
have four different phases or types of interaction, example, VDAB in Belgium started focusing heav-
some have five, but there is a large degree of agree- ily on innovation several years ago and has been
ment at least on the initial three phases: successful in this respect through a combination of
clear vision, strong leadership and a rethinking of
1. informational (in which information is deliv- processes (e.g. a very data-driven approach towards
ered to citizens, such as through downloading digitalisation). This does, however, not imply that
reports and brochures from websites); having a ‘broad all encompassing’ strategy means
that the organisation has to go through quick and
2. interactional (where citizens have the ability large scale revolution. The success of organisations
to ask questions, make complaints or search such as VDAB suggest that a more gradual ap-
for information sources); and proach in which small steps are taken is prefer-
able. This, implies that the strategy is broken down
3. transactional (where users can complete in smaller objectives which are realised in succes-
online all the different steps of a complex sion, however, the goal is to completely involve and
interaction). transform the underlying organisation.

After these three phases, models start diverging While we do not aim to provide a complete over-
with one or two subsequent phases often being in- view of all maturity models or design one specifi-
cluded, such as: cally for PES, we do aim to provide some general
observations and lessons for PES, based on this
●● participatory (where citizens provide input (limited) overview:
to the formulation of policies);
●● transformational or integrated (where Increased complexity
government’s internal organisation is modified
as a result of the need to deliver services What all models have in common is the notion that,
in an integrated, client-centric way); or as the use of technology in the organisation is in-
●● connected (combining features of both). creasing, implementation and management become
more complicated. For example, it is a lot more
The ‘transformation’ stage is a common final step complex to create a vertically integrated organisa-
of most maturity models. It’s rationale is that, at tion in which systems are seamlessly connected
a certain point, the organisation has to start rede- than it is to create a simple online catalogue.
signing itself completely in order to reap the full
benefits from digitalisation. This point is stressed Staged approach
in a 2016 study (Waller and Weerakkody, 2016)
that focused on 20 years of digitalisation efforts The first is that while every model is different, they
in governments and concluded that: have in common that they divide the process of in-
creased digitalisation in various stages to allow the
‘Many good things have happened, but two or three organisation to take a more gradual approach to-
phases of trying to ‘make government digital’ over wards a fully digitised organisation. Such a staged
the last 20 years — mostly reinventing the previ- approach makes the process manageable and in-
ous programmes with new labels — have not really creases the likelihood of success.
taken us beyond information provision and a few
online transactions. The logic has been that govern- Digitalisation requires transformation
ment equals services equals web sites — but none
of that is true.’ Digitalisation at first is (simply) about creating
digital applications that initially stand alone from
other parts of the organisation. As the digitalisa-
 15

tion matures organisations need to start rethinking Needs-based holism, which seeks to create client-
how processes are designed, what the underlying oriented structures for departments and agencies.
(organisational) structure is, what the (new) role It seeks to implement an end-to-end redesign of
of employees is and how the organisation is con- services from the perspective of the client; to create
nected to and interacts with other (governmental) one-stop processes; and finally to create a more
organisations. agile and resilient government.

Most importantly, in our view, is that as a conse- Digitalisation, urges the public sector to complete-
quence of the increased complexity, technology ly embrace and embed electronic service delivery
starts interacting with every single part of the or- processes, wherever possible. This, however, will
ganisation. It becomes less about the technol- partly imply that (able) citizens have do more. This
ogy itself and more about the organisation as would develop some kind of isocratic administration
a whole. As a result, managing the increasing role — or a type of ‘do-it-yourself’ government.
of technology in an organisation requires a shift in
importance of the topic in the organisation. In other It’s proponents argue that DEG can lead to a ‘poten-
words: as digitalisation becomes more important, tial transformation to a more genuinely integrated,
it becomes a more strategic issue that has to be agile and holistic government, whose organizational
managed at the highest levels of the organisation. operations are visible in detail both to the person-
For this reason, digital strategy is often linked to nel operating in the fewer, broader public agencies
digital transformations. and to citizens’ (Dunleavy et al. 2006). With the
increase in attention for digital strategies and digi-
This is reflected in the scholarly literature on the tal transformation within governments, it does ap-
management of government and the public sec- pear that governmental agencies are moving away
tor. In the late 1990s and early 2000s many gov- from NPM and indeed towards governments that
ernmental agencies were following management are built largely on top of digital technologies. How-
principles based on the so-called New Public Man- ever, this does not imply that governments, PES no
agement; a management style that advocated exceptions, are fully mature yet. The Croatian e-
a business-like approach to government in which Strategy, mentioned above, assessed the maturity
the citizen was seen as a customer and government of services across the country in 2017. According
should strive to deliver services and organise pro- to the e-Croatia strategy, the current situation in
cesses as efficient as possible. Currently, Margetts Croatia is such that a vast majority of e-services is
and Dunleavy (2006, 2013) argue that a new para- still at the maturity level 2, i.e. the level of one-way
digm ‘Digital Era Governance’ (DEG) is overtaking interaction.
NPM in prominence and focuses on the central role
of digital technologies. Deloitte (Eggers & Bellman, 2015) conducted a sur-
vey among government agencies in 2015 to assess
The three key points of DEG are: their digital maturity. The findings show that none
of the participating 1200 government agencies
Reintegration, which overturns the fragmentation could be classified as digitally mature. Most gov-
advocated by NPM by trying to de-silo public sector ernments are at the early stages of the journey to
processes and organisations. It puts emphasis on: digital transformation and no governments reached
the end states yet. Out of the participants, 13 %
●● true collaborative working (instead of creating are ‘maturing’, 60 % are ‘developing’, and 26 % are
silos); in the ‘early’ stages of their digital transformation.
●● ‘re-governmentalizing’ issues that must be These results were more or less the same across
dealt with by governments (as with homeland different regions. What the study does confirm, is
security); that having a strategy is one of the most im-
●● creation of centralised processes that do portant differentiators between those organisa-
things once instead of multiple times; tions that are in the early stages and those that
●● reducing process costs and using shared are mature. Having a strategy thus is important,
services eliminate NPM’s duplicate but what is a strategy and how does it tie to the
organizational hierarchies; broader goals of the organisation?
●● radical simplification of services, organizations
and policies.
16

2.3 Mission, vision & strategy

A (digital) strategy, if created properly, is part of Example | Mission
a broader set of guiding principles in the organi-
sation that are all connected. The most impor- Croatian national digital strategy
tant of these are the mission & the vision of the (Ministry of Public Administration, 2017)
organisation.
The preparation of the legal, organisational
The mission of the organisation describes the ul- and technical environment as the foundation
timate goal of the organisation. Why is the organi- for the development of innovative e-services
sation here? More specifically, according to Moore of a modern public administration, which en-
(2000), the mission of a non-profit or governmental compass the provision of complete services,
organization defines the value that the organiza- informatisation of business/administrative
tion intends to produce for its stakeholders and for processes and uncovering of the information
society at large. (p. 190)”. Two primary functions of of public administration through different chan-
mission statements are external and internal com- nels available anytime, anywhere and on any
munication and motivation (Verma, 2009). device, with the aim to improve the life of its
citizens, and thus raise the competitiveness of
The vision of the organisation describes how the economy by supporting the development of
organisation sees itself and the world change in digital economy with the aim of inclusion in
light of the mission. In governmental organisations, the unique digital EU market.
the vision is usually described in terms of the mis-
sion of the organisation and the particular activities
it undertakes in the pursuit of the mission (Moore,
2000). Having a vision is important in establishing
the purpose of the enterprise; coordinate people ac-
tions and efforts; inspire and invite commitment;
and create future of the company (Wall, 1992). Example | Vision

The strategy of the organisation describes the Department of Public Expenditure

plans of the organisation to bring it closer to achiev- and Reform (2017) (Ireland)
ing its mission in the context of the organisation’s
vision. Put simply: ‘Strategy is setting a direction, By 2020, public administrations and public
sequencing resources and making commitments’ institutions in the European Union should be
(McDonald, 2015). open, efficient and inclusive, providing border-
less, personalised, user-friendly, end-to-end
The figure below shows the relationship between digital public services to all citizens and busi-
the three concepts. Certain factors are relevant nesses in the EU. Innovative approaches are
when discussing and creating missions, visions and used to design and deliver better services in
strategies. line with the needs and demands of citizens
and businesses. Public administrations use the
Timeline opportunities offered by the new digital en-
vironment to facilitate their interactions with
The mission of the organisation is typically a very stakeholders and with each other.
long term goal without any timeline attached to it.
It is the ultimate goal and one could say that there
is no need for the organisation to exist once this
goal is attained. The vision is typically described
in the context of the (far) future, e.g. 5-10 years
ahead. This window allows the organisation to make
(informed and educated) estimates about what the
future will look like and use that to guide the in-
formation. Strategies are typically defined for the
nearer future, for example 2-5 years in the future.
 17

Figure 3. Relationship between Mission, Vision & Strategy

Status
quo

Strategy Mission
SCOPE

Vision

TIME

Level of abstraction Missions, visions and strategies tend to differ be-

tween the private and public sector. Private sector
The second factor is the level of abstraction. Mis- organisations often have financial goals. The mis-
sion statements often are more vaguely worded sion of a non-profit or governmental organisation
terms that are inspirational or aspirational (for ex- typically defines the value that the organization
ample Googles ‘Organize the world’s information intends to produce for its stakeholders and for so-
and make it universally accessible and useful.5 ’). ciety at large Moore (2000, 190). This is important
They focus on the ‘what’ the organisation wants regarding the development of a general organisa-
to do and less on ‘how’ the organisation expects tional strategy or a more specific digital strategy.
to realise this goal. The vision tends to become For the strategy to be successful, it is important
more concrete and describes in broad strokes the that it fits the broader goal of the organisa-
changes in the environment and how the organisa- tion. It will likely have negative (political) conse-
tion wants to change. The strategy, lastly, tends to quences if the organisation decides to choose
be defined in concrete terms. Often there is a (or a strategy that does not fit the overall objectives
more) strategic goal(s) and various plans to achieve of the organisation. The following table compares
this goal. more aspects of the mission (tied to concrete) goals
in the private vs. public sector (Moore, 2000):

PRIVATE SECTOR PUBLIC SECTOR

Normative goal Enhance shareholder wealth Achievable social mission
Principle source of revenue Revenues earned by sale Charitable contributions
of products and services or tax appropriations
Measure of performance Financial bottom line or Efficiency and effectiveness
increased equity value in achieving mission
Key calculation Find and exploit distinctive Find better ways
competence of firm by to achieve mission
positioning it in product/
service markets

Moore (2000) argues that an organization can be of the organisation needs to balance a) the value
said to have a strategy when the leaders and the the organisation wants to deliver (as described in
organization as a whole have committed themselves the mission), b) legitimacy and support of both the
to a particular vision of how the organization will political organisations and citizens and c) the opera-
operate to create value and sustain itself in the im- tional capacity. Thus, the strategy of the organisa-
mediate future. Within the public sector, the strategy tion, if formulated well, help the various organisa-

5 See https://www.google.com/about/our-company
18

tional parts to contribute to the realisation of the and vision (and values of the organisation) to the
mission of the organisation, within the context of the operational side of the organisation. The figure be-
current vision. Naturally, the organisation can have low, from the work of Poister and Streib (1999) give
multiple strategies (of which the digital strategy a meaningful idea of the relationship between these
can be one). These strategies connect the mission concepts.

Figure 4. Connecting strategy to the organisation (Poister & Streib, 1999)

Labor Customer/Constituent

ST
Relations Interface

RA
TE
GI
Internal Public

ES
Communications Relations

Organisational Intergovernmental
Culture Relations

Human Resources Legislative

Development Values Agenda
Mission
Performance Vision Program Planning
Management and Evaluation

Budgetting and Program and Project

Financial Management Management

Administrative Service Delivery

Processes Systems

Organisational Performance
Structure Measurement

During the 1990s, as information technologies (Scott Morton, 1991) was one of the first strategic
gained prominence, technology became a more management models to include the link between
central component of strategy development and strategy and technology.
execution. For example, the MIT90 framework

Figure 5. Technology as strategic factor in the MIT90 framework (Scott Morton, 1991)

MIT90 FRAMEWORK
Organisation &
coordination
Structure
Vision & Planning Information
direction & control Technology

Strategy Management Technology

Processes

Individuals
and Roles Human resources

Models such as these see (digital) technologies products, services and processes. In that sense, the
no longer as simply a tool or resource that can be strategy followed was very much an IT strategy:
used in the organisation, but as a key part of the ‘a process of selecting which technologies you will
organisation. Initial investments in technologies invest in and where those investments would go’
concentrated on applying technologies to existing (McDonald, 2015). With the increased importance of
 19

technology and the increasing maturity of technol- 2.4 Digital strategies

ogy within (governmental) organisations has come & transformation
a shift in the approach towards strategy. Technol-
ogy is now so important to warrant its own strategy. Now that we have defined the concept of digital
In business, according to McDonald (2015), a digital strategy, we move on and discuss the concept in
strategy is the answer to the following question: more detail and do this from the context of (digital)
‘how can a business win using information and transformation (see section 2.2). What are elements
technology to raise human performance?’ Further- of digital strategies and how do they contribute
more, with the prominence of technology in modern to a digital transformation?
organisations, it is important to note that digital
strategies will likely impact other strategies Prior to the TRW, we asked participants to indicate
as well. Therefore, when developing strategies it is the extent to which they agree with several state-
wise to analyse existing strategic plans and docu- ments regarding strategy. The statements were
ments and align initiatives. phrased along the lines of ‘to what extend to you
feel the organisation has X’. None of the respond-
Transposed to the governmental sector, and based ents completely disagreed with any of the state-
on the analysis above, we can thus create the fol- ments. Respondents were most positive about their
lowing definition of a governmental digital strategy: PES having clear goals (57 % agree/totally agree,
see Figure 6), followed by there be a clear digitali-
A digital strategy is the application of information sation strategy (64 % agree/totally agree). Despite
and technology in a governmental organisation to there being clear strategic goals for a majority
provide value for its stakeholders and for society of PES, the more execution related elements are
at large as defined in its mission and within the evaluated less positively. For example, the majority
context of the organisational vision. is neutral or negative towards there being a cul-
ture of innovation and the strategy being updated
For PES this could be further specified as: regularly. So while organisations do have a strat-
egy, there seems to be less flexibility than perhaps
A PES’ digital strategy is the application of informa- needed and there could be more attention for the
tion and technology to provide value for job-seek- role of data and change management.
ers, employers, and other stakeholders as defined in
the PES mission and within the context of its vision.

STRATEGIC
Figure 6. Strategic considerations within PES CONSIDERATIONS WITHIN PES

Clear goals 43 % 36 % 21 %

Clear digitalisation strategy 36 % 50 % 14 %

All channel strategy 7% 50 % 36 % 7%

Org ready for change 21.5 % 57 % 21.5 %

Channels managed by single unit 29 % 36 % 21 % 14 %

Data driven organisation 36 % 43 % 14 % 7%

Culture of innovation 36 % 50 % 14 %

Regular strategy updates 43 % 7% 36 % 7% 7%

0% 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 % 60 % 70 % 80 % 90 % 100 %

Totally disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Totally agree Don’t know/

Not applicable
20

It also appears that the strategies that are in place and include factors such as leadership, skills, cul-
focus much more on (overall) goals than on execu- ture and users. Furthermore, the strategic goals are
tion (such as change management and regular up- different. The table below (based on Eggers and
dates). However, it seems advisable to broaden the Bellman (2015)) shows the strategic focus, role
scope. Deloitte (Eggers & Bellman, 2015) recently of leadership, etc.
conducted more than 140 interviews with public
sector leaders involved in digital transformation. As we saw in section 2.2, transformation is in most
From the interviews emerged five factors shaping digitalisation models a later or final stage in a pro-
digital transformation: cess consisting of many steps. The table above
suggests that more mature organisations focus on
●● strategy, transformation from the start. At this point in
●● leadership, time, this probably makes sense. Successful organi-
●● workforce skills, sations have gone through full processes of digi-
●● digital culture, and talisation and many of the pitfalls are known and
●● user focus for that reason it seems advisable for PES who are
in the early stages of their process to aim for a fun-
Having a strategy to begin with is, (naturally) a key damental transformation from the start. Such an
factor for success, but in the more successful approach is being taking at present by Le Forem,
organ­isations, these strategies have a broad focus the PES in Wallonia (BE)

Table 1. Characteristics of digitally maturing organisations, based on Eggers and Bellman (2015)

EARLY STAGES DEVELOPING MATURING

Strategic goal Aimed at cost reduction Aimed at improving Aimed at fundamental
customer experience transformation of
and decision making processes
Type of leadership Lacks awareness Digitally aware Digitally sophisticated
and skills
Workforce development Insufficient investment Moderate investment Adequate investment
User focus Absent Gaining traction ‘Central’ to digital
transformation
Culture Risk averse; Risk tolerant, Risk receptive; fosters
disintegrated accomodates innovation and
collaboration
 21

CASE STUDY: DIGITALISATION AT PES BELGIUM-WALLONIA (LE FOREM)

Le Forem, the PES in Wallonia/Belgium just released their digital strategy (Le Forem, 2017).
The strategy is based on the following mission ‘we are phygital’6, this is a portmanteau for ‘physical’
and ‘digital’, meant to signify how the organisation seeks to combine digital ways of working with
human or personal contact. The organisation does strive towards a ‘digital switchover’ and the
ambition is to offer more services to more users, to ensure better accessibility and quality. To this
end, the objectives of this digital transformation revolve around three poles:

1. Users: the ambition is to provide more customised services according to users’ needs offering
users more autonomy and which are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,

2. The organisation: thanks to a system of automation and self-service, resulting in time savings,
Le Forem intends to expand its service offering and succeed in taking charge of more users.

3. Employees: as key players in the digital transformation, employees will need to focus on high
value-added tasks and adopt a ‘coaching’ mentality towards users, to support them in their
efforts.

Le Forem’s challenge is to provide users and employers with a clear and standardised service offering
which is adapted to their needs, regardless of the type of contact (face-to-face or remotely), through:

‣‣ Suitable and fluid customer pathways;

‣‣ A digital and flexible service offering;
‣‣ Employment and training specialists;
‣‣ Professional, secure and open data and information management;
‣‣ Open and shared information tools and systems.

In more operational sense, the strategy is organised around five strands:

1. Professionalise data management

2. Construct Application Programme Interfaces (API) and a flexible IT architecture
3. Roll out online self service
4. Develop staff skills and support them
5. Develop user autonomy

The need to take a broad approach towards digi­ ●● A focus on talent and employees with the right
talisation is recognised in other publications. (and evolving) skills, also resulting in these
A 2015 study on ‘digital success’ of companies7 organisations being attractive as employers.
found that companies that have a broad all- encom­ ●● Risk taking becomes a cultural norm and
passing digital strategy tend to be more success- drives innovation.
ful. These digital strategies typically encompass ●● The digital agenda is driven by the top.
the following: Leadership turns out to be a key enabler
for success.
●● Integration of technology as part of an entire
transformation of business processes (digital
re-imagination)

6 Phygital as a concept was first used by Pôle Emploi, the French PES. See https://www.pole-emploi.fr/region/auvergne-rhone-
alpes/informations/du-phygital-a-pole-emploi-des-services-digitaux-et-physiques-@/region/auvergne-rhone-alpes/article.
jspz?id=472576
7 https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/
22

In a similar vein, McKinsey (2018), very recently Service ICT Strategy, which was published in 2015,
published a study in which they present the 5Cs sets out an ambitious ICT-driven agenda under five
of successful governmental digital transformations: ‘pillars’, i.e. Build to Share; Digital First; Data as an
Enabler; Improve Governance; and Increase Capa-
●● Committed leadership bility. Novel ways in which PES are using data are
●● Clear purpose and priorities in labs (e.g. the innovation lab at the Flemish PES,
●● Cadence and coordination in delivery VDAB and Le LAB in France (Pôle emploi). These
●● Compelling communication labs not only serve as ways to collect data and
●● Capability for change experiment with data in a controlled environment,
but also as means to create customer insights and
Gill & VanBoskirk (2016) take a slightly different involve customers in processes of co-creation.
approach and focus on four dimensions that deter-
mine the level of digital maturity of an organisation: Another important factor, stressed by Kane et al
(2015) is the role of talent. They found that ‘the
Cultural ability to digitally reimagine the business is de-
termined in large part by a clear digital strategy
The approach to digitally driven innovation and supported by leaders who foster a culture able to
how the organisation empowers employees with change and invent the new. While these insights are
technologies. consistent with prior technology evolutions, what is
unique to digital transformation is that risk taking
Organisational is becoming a cultural norm as more digitally ad-
vanced companies seek new levels of competitive
The alignment of the organisation with regards to advantage. Equally important, employees across all
the support of the digital strategy, governance and age groups want to work for businesses that are
execution. deeply committed to digital progress’. While aimed
at businesses, the insight about talent certainly
Technical applies to governments as well. Governments do
struggle with talent gaps (McKinsey, 2018), so it
The organisation’s use and adoption of new and seems important to pay attention to recruitment
emerging technologies. and talent when designing a digital strategy.

Insights Even though the studies argue that in the end digital
strategies should aim at transformation and should
How well an organisation uses customer and business be broad, a key question remains what the organi-
data to measure success and inform the strategy. sation concretely wants to achieve in the not too
distant future. One type of digital strategy is ‘digital
Based on an assessment of these four factors, For- by default’. Services that are ‘digital by default’ are
rester divided in a study among 227 global deci- designed from the beginning to be so compelling
sion makers, these organisations in four groups, that everyone who can use them will choose to do
based on their maturity. In general, public sector so. Another type, as described in the case study
agencies, according to this study, fall in the least above is a ‘phygital’ approach in which on- and of-
mature bracket of ‘skeptics’. These are ‘technology- fline approaches are blended. Such an approach is
sluggish firms’ — skewed toward extremely large also followed by the UK. The UK’s ‘Digital Strategy’
financial services, telecom, and public sector firms not only focuses on the impact of digitalisation for
— that have limited experience innovating or ap- the private sector and citizens, but also what digi-
plying an outside-in approach to strategic planning. talisation means for the functioning of government
The report stresses the importance of data and and governmental service delivery. In their vision,
insights to measure success and this is an area the digital transformation should8:
where organisations in the ‘skeptics’ bracket can
improve. The role of data is also stressed in the ●● recognise that government delivers services
digital strategy from the Department of Public Ex- through a variety of channels (including
penditure and Reform (2017) in Ireland. Their Public online, telephone and face-to-face)

8 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-strategy/6-digital-government-maintaining
-the-uk-government-as-a-world-leader-in-serving-its-citizens-online
 23

●● broaden the definition of users, for example Based on the analysis in this chapter, we can draw
to reflect that some users will interact with a number of conclusions. The first points to the im-
government through third-party services portance of strategy. In the end, a strategy is an
that use government APIs (application important tool for the organisation to realise it’s
programming interfaces) mission and PES are no exception. As technology be-
●● cover the internal workings of departments comes more important and the role of digital tools
as well as the services they offer to users become more prevalent, management of such tools
becomes more complex and digitalisation becomes
This has led to the following areas of priority for the a more strategic topic. In order for digitalisation to
current government: be successful, simply digitising existing services or
processes is unlikely to succeed, PES are better off
●● design and deliver joined-up, end-to-end aiming for a transformation to begin with and this
services transformation should be at the heart of the digital
●● deliver the major transformation programmes strategy. The success of such strategy depends heav-
●● establish a whole-government approach to ily on such aspects as a) leadership, b) the clarity and
transformation, laying the ground for broader communication of the strategy and underlying vision,
transformation across the public sector c) changes in culture and structure of the organisa-
tion, d) skills and capabilities and staff and future
While striving towards transformation, the strategy talent, e) customer insights and f) data to measure
does not ignore or neglect the non-digital aspects success and iterate the strategy.
of services and processes. However, for the majority
of all organisations ‘digital first’ seems to be the
guiding principle.

3. DEVELOPING & IMPLEMENTING

DIGITAL STRATEGIES
In the previous chapter we learned that having a digital strategy is important. In the long
run, PES should aim to transform their organisations to benefit from digitalisation and re-
alise it’s potential. In this chapter we focus more practically on the development of a digital
strategy, the obstacles that PES might face and some factors for success.

Few guides or ‘how-tos’ regarding the development ●● Involvement of users, public servants and
of a digital strategy exist. In very general terms it sector professionals
is important to ensure that the adopted strategy »» Identify and engage with key testimonials
is feasible, value creating, and sustainable (Moore, from users’ groups
1995). Fortunately, some relevant information is »» Involve public services right from the start
available that we can draw upon. In an overview, »» Actively engage sector professionals from
the OECD (2016) present one of the more com- the field
prehensive checklists that governmental decision »» Engage all levels of government
makers can use to create a digital strategy. The ●● Communication
checklist consists of the following activities. »» Establish communication networks
»» Share experience and knowledge
●● Project approach ●● Review and evaluation
»» Clarify the governance framework (i.e., who »» Use available data to identify evidence in
is involved) support of better policies
»» Have a clear long-term vision »» Document project implementation
»» Lead implementation with the right team »» Adopt a clear evaluation framework
»» Experiment through pilots or ‘beta-tests’ including impact indicators.
»» Develop a solid Business Case
In another report, the same OECD presents a dif-
ferent checklist, this is shown in Appendix 2.
24

CASE STUDY: projects (e.g. ‘Implementing the Search & Match-

DIGITAL STRATEGY IN SLOVENIA ing Tool’), as well as additional activities that
do not directly have a technical nature, but are
The Slovenian PES is in the process of de- essential for achieving success (e.g. ‘Developing
veloping and executing their digital strategy and upgrading systems for analyses and busi-
(ESS2020). The strategy works towards five key ness reporting’). This comes from the realisation
objectives: that the organisation needs to rethink the entire
business in order to become a digital organisa-
‣‣ Strengthening digital business with job tion. To that end, it has adopted the mantra that
seekers and employers; ‘Digital has to become the basic business model’
‣‣ Improving applications and tools, used and this resulted in the following approach to-
by ESS employees when working with job wards digitalisation:
seekers and employers;
‣‣ Providing job seekers and employers with 1. Reconstruction of procesess before digitali-
quality and user-friendly web tools for sation and automatisation
managing supply and demand on the labour
market and for implementing Active Labour 2. Integration of new IT solutions in the core
Market Policy measures; and supporting processes
‣‣ Establishing effective communication
channels between job seekers, employers, 3. New online and self-service services
and ESS employees by establishing the development
necessary links between web-based and
back-office applications;  4. Multi/omni chanelling to deliver services
‣‣ Establishing the necessary links with the
EURES platform and other labour market This approach highlights the importance of digi-
stakeholders in Slovenia. tal transformation as part of the digital strategy.
In order to realise these goals, each objective PES need to start thinking digital in order to reap
has been operationalised in a series of concrete the benefits from technology.

Eggers and Bellman (2015) in their publication ‘The hinder digital transformation, and devise
journey to government’s digital transformation’ also strategies to move past each of these barriers.
mention activities that need to be executed as part
of their digital strategy. In their view, successful Furthermore, they argue that the strategy must be
strategies focus on: accompanied by a mechanism to track and meas-
ure progress against the digital goals.
●● Offer a vision for the future. Devising
a clear and coherent digital strategy is O’Donovan & Flower (2013) offer a cascading
the first step toward successful digital model of strategic choices that need to be made
transformation. while creating a strategy. These questions can be
●● Provide a detailed plan for addressing used by PES to start thinking and developing their
the key elements of digital strategies.
transformation. Build a roadmap for
digital transformation that covers elements Furthermore, they argue for the concept of ‘Adap-
such as culture, leadership, workforce, and tive strategy’: ‘We think that what is necessary to-
procurement. day is a strategy that breaks free of static plans to
●● Build organizational capabilities. Prepare be adaptive and directive, that emphasizes learning
for digital transformation by addressing and control, and that reclaims the value of strategic
digital skills gaps and investing in resources thinking for the world that now surrounds us. ’In our
and technologies to help build a culture and view, this is in line with the arguments presented
capabilities supporting the digital transition. in the second chapter. O’Donovan, Kasper & Dubbs
●● Attack barriers. Identify the processes, (2018) build on this model of ‘adaptive strategy’
legislation, and cultural elements that could and provide us with a number of lessons:
 25

Figure 7. Cascading model of strategic choices (O’Donovan & Flower, 2013)

What is our vision and T H E R E F OR

E
theory of change?
Where will T H E R E F OR
What social challenge are E
we play?
we working to address and
how do we believe that we How will T H E R E F OR
What part of the problem E
can make a difference? we succeed?
should we work on, what role
should we play, and where What capabilities
What actions, adaptations,
TH will we focus our efforts? will we need?
ERE
FORE
and economic model are
required, and how will we
What skills and abilities
TH measure our success?
ERE
FORE
will we need, individually
and collectively, to create
TH the impact we have set
ERE
FORE
out to achieve?

1. ‘widening your aperture’ is critical to having 2. Are data-driven, i.e. Continuously collect data
an effective strategy. If you go into a strategy to track progress towards meeting goals
process with all the same inputs you always
have, you’ll almost certainly get the same out- 3. Have scheduled evaluations in which the col-
comes you always have. lected data is being used to stay on course or
adjust plans.
2. The second lesson we’ve learned from the
innovation space is about the importance of This implies that time horizons for strategy shorten
designing and managing experiments—explic- (e.g. not 5 years in the future, but more towards
itly testing strategic elements in the field and 2 years) and capacity is reserved to monitor and
adjusting them as necessary.’ adjust the strategy at frequent intervals. However,
more lessons exist. In the previous chapter, we dis-
3. ‘many organizations create strategic plans cussed how a Forrester study (Gill & VanBoskirk,
without a firm grounding in their current op- 2016) found that public sector agencies tend to be
erational reality’ laggards (in the ‘skeptics’ bracket) when it comes to
digital maturity. The publication does suggest that,
4. ‘data-driven decision-making has made it change agents9 at skeptic organisations should:
clear that data really only matters to the de-
gree that people use it’ ●● Initiate a few pathfinding projects to warm
execs to its potential.
5. ‘most strategy processes still happen primar- ●● Centralize digital resources.
ily at the leadership level of the organization, ●● De-emphasize industry experience to recruit
the majority of the execution does not. When digital talent.
people across all levels drive the process, it is
more likely that changes will be implemented Digital teams must focus on three key functional
well and sustained over time.’ activities:

In our view, these lessons make sense and PES could 1. Developing Digital Strategy
benefit from them. Especially the concept of ‘adap-
tive strategy’ makes sense. The world is changing 2. Governing Digital Activities across their firms
so rapidly that there is very little point in developing
very rigid strategies that take a long time to execute. 3. Driving operational excellence into their digital
It makes sense to develop strategies that: execution

1. Are flexible, i.e. There is room to make ad- An example of such a ‘digital team’, consisting of
justments over time the change agents driving and executing the change
can be found in Australia. The Australian govern-
ment created the ‘Digital Transformation Office
9 People in charge of executing the digital strategy (DTO)’ in 2015. Its purposes is to ‘lead the transfor-
26

mation of government services to deliver a better

experience for Australians’ (Open Government Part- CASE STUDY: DIGITAL ACADEMY AT DWP
nership Australia, 2015). Such a team could utilise
six key levers (Dilmegani, Korkmaz and Lundqvist, In order to improve the digital skill levels of em-
2014) to get the work done: ployees, the UK Department for Work and Pen-
sions (DWP), create a digital academy where
1. Win government-wide and agency-deep com- employees can follow training and take courses
mitment to specific digital targets. to better understand and use technologies.

2. Establish government-wide coordination of The success of the digital academy was such
IT investments. that the DWP Digital Academy became part of
the (more general) Governmental Digital Ser-
3. Redesign processes with the end user in mind. vice (GDS) in 2017 and now offers courses to
the entire government. The academy currently
4. Hire and nurture the right talent. offers such courses as:

5. Use big data and analytics to improve deci- ‣‣ Digital and agile awareness (general and
sion making. for policy makers)
‣‣ Digital and agile foundation course
6. Protect critical infrastructure and confidential ‣‣ Agile for teams
data. ‣‣ Research and design in government
‣‣ User-centred design training
In this context, the role of PES employees should
not be underestimated. While several of the mod- So while certain courses are focused on using
els described above already stress the importance technology, many of the courses touch upon
of talent, internal stakeholders and change agents, topics that are not directly technology focused,
there are more reasons to involve staff heavily but are part of the skills needed to transform
when creating digital strategies. The TRW made government into a digital government.
clear that involvement of staff is a critical fac-
tor for success of PES digital strategies. It helps For all courses, see here: https://gdsacademy.
in three different ways: campaign.gov.uk/

●● Involving staff, and their ideas, are a good

way to ensure their buy-in. Making them part ●● Staff can act as proxy to collect customer
of the process will likely reduce resistance. feedback (a practice used in Estonia).
One example of how PES are applying this, As case‑workers and other front-line staff are
is the utilisation of ‘Intrapreneurs’ within the in regular contact with customers, they will
French PES10. Intrapreneurs are employees receive feedback from these clients. While this
with good ideas to make improvements in can never replace direct input from customers,
the organisation and are given the resources it provides a good and additional resource.
to execute their ideas. Tied into this is the
importance of staff training and participants The TRW in Estonia made clear that the implementa-
see the potential of novel tools to aid in this, tion of digital strategies presents a real bottleneck.
such as e-learning platforms, skype, recording It seems relatively easy to create a digital strategy
of training and social media (e.g. Facebook). consisting of several (more or less) coherent projects
●● Staff, as important users of tools and or activities, but the real challenge is to tackle the
applications will likely have good ideas on underlying organisation and implement the desired
how to improve these. Case-workers and other actions. As such, it seems that PES are well suited
people in the process can thus be a valuable to execute digitalisation projects, but have more dif-
source in getting input before and during ficulties to transform their entire organisation. Some
the digitalisation process. of the insights above could aid in realising that chal-
lenge. In the next section we will discuss some com-
mon barriers and obstacles in more detail.

10 http://www.pole-emploi.org/accueil/actualites/les-intrapreneurs-pole-emploi.html?type=article
 27

3.1 Barriers & challenges Beyond the resources and legacy obstacles, it
is surprising that many of the most important ob-
In the survey leading up to the TRW, we asked PES stacles are ‘soft’ obstacles of a non-technical na-
about the challenges and obstacles they see on ture, such as resistance in the organisation, lack of
their path to digitalisation. The figure below (Fig- digital skills and consumer adoption. This suggests
ure 8) gives an overview of the main challenges that there should be ample room within the digital
perceived by PES. strategy to focus on the ‘people’ aspects.

In general, the most important obstacles are the These barriers align somewhat with the obstacles
lack of (financial) resources and the existence of found in the literature. Eggers and Bellman (2015)
legacy systems. Lack of resources, of course, cre- found that the main barrier for early stage organisa-
ates an important obstacle. It suggests PES need tions is the lack of an overall strategy. Making things
to be smart with their existing resources and worse, these early stage organisations often lack
take gradual approaches (as outlined above) rather the understanding of the technological trends that
than developing strategies that consume too many can impact their organisation. The overall barriers
resources to begin with. During the TRW it became (across all organisations) are the following: a) Too
clear that a key solution to this problem appears to many competing priorities, b) insufficient funding
be ‘smart’ in how the work is organised. For exam- and c) security concerns. While PES indicate that
ple, the success of the Estonian PES is the result they do have an overall strategy, the other obsta-
of good decisions, management, mindset, but not cles do apply. The lack of resources thereby seems
about resources. By taking small steps, focused on an important issues, especially given that a recent
cost reduction, the PES can free up resources that study found that public-sector IT projects requiring
can be used to invest in further improvements. This business change were six times more likely to experi-
is echoed in other studies (see e.g. McKinsey, 2018) ence cost overruns and 20 percent more likely to run
that suggest that it is wise to keep targets few, over schedule than such projects in the private sector
specific, and outcome based. (Dilmegani, Korkmaz and Lundqvist, 2014).

KEY CHALLENGES
Figure 8. Challenges and obstacles within PES AND OBSTACLES WITHIN PES

Lack of (fin) resources 36 % 29 % 7% 14 % 14 %

Legacy systems 28.5 % 28.5 % 28.5 % 7% 7%

Resistance Org 14 % 29 % 29 % 14 % 14 %

Insufficient digital skills 14 % 21 % 43 % 21 %

Lack int. process 7% 36 % 36 % 14 % 7%

Customer adoption 7 % 21 % 43 % 7% 21 %

Leadership 7 % 21 % 29 % 7% 36 %

Org. Silos 43 % 43 % 7% 7%

Lack knowledge new tech 43 % 29 % 29 %

Lack knowledge current tech 29 % 29 % 14 % 29 %

Lack of customer insights 21 % 57 % 21 %

Lack of multi/omni channel strat 21 % 50 % 21 % 7%

Lack of data 21 % 21 % 21 % 29 % 7%

Lack of vision 14 % 57 % 29 %

0% 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 % 60 % 70 % 80 % 90 % 100 %

Very important obstacle Important obstacle Moderately important obstacle

Obstacle of little importance Unimportant obstacle Don’t know/Not applicable

28

The same study (Dilmegani, Korkmaz and Lun- alising services, b) sharing data within the PES and
dqvist, 2014) found that digital transformation in between governments, c) safeguarding the data
the public sector is often more complicated than (e.g. Data security).
similar transformations in the private sector:
Risks related to introducing major changes
‘The public sector must cope with additional in complex and politically sensitive areas.
management issues, including multiple agencies,
a range of organizational mandates and constituen- PES operate in, often, politically sensitive waters
cies, longer appropriations timelines, and the chal- and introducing big changes will lead to scrutiny by
lenge of maintaining strategic continuity even as the media, the public and politics. For example, the
political administrations change.’ introduction of the ‘Universal Credit’ in the UK leads
to the Department of Work and Pensions being con-
What can help in mitigating these obstacles is cre- tinuously scrutinised in the UK. Similarly, the Dutch
ating clear objectives and accountability mecha- strategy of going completely (with few exceptions)
nisms (Thornton & Campbell, 2017). This entails: digital only a few years back was met with both
backlash in the media and parliament.
●● clear accountability, avoiding confusion as to
who is responsible for what and to whom Lastly, Andrews et al. (2016) in an analysis of the
●● sufficient control, meaning that the person state of digitalisation within the UK government
being held to account can control the factors identified five challenges that will most likely apply
for which they are held to account to other governments as well:
●● sufficient information, so that those holding
the person to account can do so based on 1. Moving from small changes to transformation
relevant performance information
●● clarity of consequences, with a consistent and 2. Bringing policy and implementation together
widely understood link between performance
and the rewards and sanctions that flow 3. Tackling IT legacies
from it.
4. Adapting traditional governance to digital
Other publications mention some different chal- projects
lenges. The Directorate-General for Parliamentary
Research Services (2015), in more general terms 5. Building a digitally capable workforce, and
mentions that eGovernment presents a number of keeping it
real or potential problems:
PES already acknowledge, given the survey results,
Digital divide that the road towards digitalisation is bumpy and
full of obstacles. Many of the obstacles are pre-
The lack of access or skills to use digital technolo- sent in other governmental agencies as well and
gies. This applies to both clients and employees and few seem to have concrete solutions to tackle these
is something that applies to PES as well. With PES challenges. Moreover, we see the following: a) the
slowly digitalising their services, it is important to number of potential challenges is (very) large and
include uptake and the role of digital skills of client b) the way they manifest could differ from organi-
groups in plans for the role out of digital tools and sation to organisation and depends on the specific
services.11 context, c) the PES context might make some of
these challenges more complicated than in the pri-
Citizens’ privacy (and data protection) vate sector. For these reasons, while creating the
digital strategy, the PES needs to be very aware
Especially with the new GDPR12, protecting clients’ of their own situation and carefully investigate all
privacy becomes an even more important issue. obstacles facing the PES. Only then has a digital
This could pose challenges in terms of a) person- strategy a chance at success.

11 Also see the analytical paper on Multi-Channel Management in PES: From Blending to Omni-Channeling for a longer
discussion of this important obstacle.
12 See General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Regulation (Eu) 2016/679 Of The European Parliament And Of The Council.
 29

4. MEASURING SUCCESS
In this chapter we focus on the role of data and measurement. While creating and execut-
ing a digital strategy are both important, of equal importance is the PES ability to translate
abstract goals into targets that can be measured, collect the relevant data, interpret the
results and adjust course when needed. Especially when choosing more flexible or adaptive
strategies this becomes more important.

The role of data and measurement have featured (in slightly different contexts) in other
PES network publications, most notably:

• Performance management (Bjerre, Sidelman & Puchwein-Roberts, 2016)

• Role of IT & Data (Pieterson, 2016)

4.1 Goals & use of data ernisation showed that PES do not utilise the full
potential of data they collect to measure the ef-
Setting goals to measure operational performance fectiveness and efficiency of their processes and
is by no means new to PES. By now, most PES have services.
institutionalised – or committed to – Management-
by-Objectives (MbO) systems in order to deliver For the 2018 TRW, we asked PES several questions
their services in the most efficient and effective regarding the role of data (and some related ques-
way (see Weishaupt, 2016; Scharle, Adamecz & tions regarding the underlying IT systems that pro-
Nunn, 2017). However, at the same time, the TRW vide one of the data sources). The answers to these
from 2016 on the use of data and IT for PES mod- questions are shown below (figure 9).

Figure 9. Current role of data within PES

Unified IT System 4% 29 % 7%

Common set of definitions 50 % 36 % 7% 7%

Client data shared across processes 50 % 7% 23 % 14 %
System data used to measure KPIs 36 % 50 % 14 %
Mission/Vision in KPIs 36 % 50 % 14 %
Uniformly defined… 29 % 64 % 7%
Data input strategic decisions 29 % 57 % 14 %
Data used to evaluate 29 % 50 % 21 %
Data synchronised across channels 21 % 57 % 21 %
External systems linked to pull data 14 % 79 % 7%
Linked processes 14 % 57 % 21 % 7%
Data used to simplify 8% 69 % 8% 15 %
External systems linked to share…
7% 79 % 14 %
Unified view of customers
7% 57 % 14 % 21 %
Data used to monitor channel…
7% 43 % 21 % 29 %

0% 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 % 60 % 70 % 80 % 90 % 100 %

Yes completely No, but are concrete plans

Yes, partially/in progress No, not planned

30

While most PES have unified IT systems (which measure the success of any digital strategy. This
would facilitate data extraction) and about half the applies especially to government where unsuccess-
PES have a common set of definitions of key con- ful initiatives are often scrutinised by the public and
cepts and at least some uniformity in data across the media and public money is being spent for the
processes, the use of actual data to measure goals greater good.
is much lower. Using data is clearly a ‘work in
progress’ for PES and during the TRW it became If implemented correctly, PES translate their Mis-
clear that even the more digitally advanced PES sion, Vision & Strategy (MVS) into concrete goals
are struggling with this topic. If PES do not fully or objectives. From these goals a set of Key Per-
translate their organisational mission/vision into formance Indicators is derived and these are sub-
measurable goals, it is safe to assume that the sequently measured, used to evaluate progress
same applies to visions and strategies around digi- and, if needed, used to adjust any of the MVS. This
tal transformation. creates what we label a ‘Measurement Cycle’ (see
Figure 10 below) that can be used to execute strat-
This in reality seems common, since also in the egies, especially more adaptive strategies (since
private sector often no metrics are being used these benefit from regular feedback and updates
to describe and measure the success of a digital to the strategy). Below we will discuss the key parts
transformation13. Nevertheless, it is important to of the cycle.

Figure 10. Role of data in creating and sustaining mission, vision, strategy
MEASUREMENT CYCLE

Research

MVS Goals KPIs

Adjust Evaluate Measure

Research into mission, vision and strategy culture and structure of the organisation,
d) skills and capabilities and staff and
While the mission, vision and (digital) strategy have future talent, and e) customer insights (their
been discussed extensively in previous chapters, it behaviours, needs and wants).
remains important to reiterate the importance of
creating a proper MVS and making sure the goals As part of the developments of the e-Croatia 2020
that will be derived from them are realistic. This is strategy, Ministry of Public Administration (2017)
where the role of research come in. Research can conducted a large survey under ~3300 people in
serve the creation of an appropriate (digital) MVS Croatia to accompany the development of the strat-
in several ways: egy. The survey showed the relative importance of
various policy areas to the citizens and thus helped
●● Understanding current and anticipated shape the strategy. Regarding employment, the re-
technological developments and how they sults showed the following:
could benefit the organisation.
●● Gaining insights in how new and future ●● Access to vacancies in the public sector
technologies can fit the organisation in terms and Croatian Employment Service was an
of a) current technology and processes, b) important topic (out of 17 topics) with regards

13 See for example https://www.cio.com/article/3236446/digital-transformation/digital-kpis-your-keys-to-measuring-digital-

transformation-success.html
 31

to ‘importance of access to public services’. employment’, ‘matching labour supply and demand’,
Around 80 % rate it ‘(pretty) Important’. ‘securing subsistence by calculating and disbursing
●● Labour ranked the 5th important topic benefits’, ‘fostering equal opportunity on the labour
regarding public e-Services (7.7 %) and public market’, ‘improving services for the unemployed’.’
sector information (8.1 %)
In order to ensure objectives can be measured (prop-
Such efforts help the organisation think critically erly), it is possible to use guidelines that can help
about what it wants to achieve and thus create translate more ambiguous goals into measur-
more realistic MVS. able objectives. One of the most well-known one
is the S.M.A.R.T. Criteria (Doran, 1981). This acronym
Goals & objectives specifies that each objective should be:

The next step is to translate the strategy into con- ●● Specific – be aimed at a specific area
crete goals that can be achieved. While financial for improvement.
goals are often the most important ones in the pri- ●● Measurable – should be quantifiable.
vate sector. Some argue that such goals may not be ●● Assignable – specify who will do it (also
the best for governments. Oster (1995), for exam- see the section on accountability above).
ple argues that ‘the principal value delivered by the ●● Realistic – there should be a realistic
government sector is the achievement of the politi- specification of the types of output.
cally mandated mission of the organization and the ●● Time-related – give an indication when
fulfilment of the citizen aspirations that were more results can be achieved/expected.
or less reliably reflected in that mandate. Impor-
tantly, the value of neither non-profit enterprises While this model has been criticised in the past
nor government bureaucracies is particularly well and other have changed or added criteria, it is still
measured by their financial performance.’ in widespread use and can be a useful tool in the
very least to think about how strategic goals can
This does not mean, however that financial goals be made concrete.
can never be set, but often they are tied to other
goals (e.g. Retaining performance while reducing KPIs
budget). It is more common to define goals in terms
of usage and/or update. For example, the afore- The next step is to translate and filter the objectives
mentioned e-Croatia 2020 strategy formulates into key performance indicators or KPIs.
a higher level strategic goal that is subsequently
translated into concrete objectives: Key performance indicators (KPI) are defined
(Weishaupt, 2016) as performance indicators which
‘The strategic goal of the Strategy is to develop e- are perceived as critical success factors and which
services required by citizens and businesses, and are of a quantitative nature (i.e., not just a general
thus to increase the number of citizens who use statement).
aggregate e-services of the public administration
from 31.9 % in 2014 to 65 % in 2020, and the num- While a digital strategy can consist of many goals
ber of businesses which use public administration (and sub-goals), only a limited set are crucial for
e-services from 92.7 % in 2013 to 97 % in 2020.’ success and capture the most important part of
progress. For example, within the setting of a PES,
Previous publications from the PES network can customer satisfaction14 with digital tools can be
help us gain further insights into the role and im- measured across many different tools and for very
portance of goals and objectives. The analytical different subgroups. While the satisfaction of a sub-
paper on Performance Management defines the group with a specific tool is important to improve
following as objectives: that tool, the success of the entire digital transfor-
mation is better reflected by the satisfaction of all
‘requirements on the national level either deter- jobseekers across all digital tools.
mined by the legal mandate of a PES and/or the
governing authority. Examples of commonly used The difficult part about formulating a set of KPIs
objectives may include ‘preventing and reducing un- is narrowing the long list of possible performance

14 Also see the 2016 toolkit on this topic.

32

indicators down to the key ones. McKinsey (2018) measures for digital success and used those in-
found that successful transformations have a lim- stead of attempting to measure and use every bit
ited number of clear priorities translated into of information.
a handful of critical, measurable outcomes. That
could sound straightforward, but most government As became clear during the TRW, the Estonian PES
change efforts fail to achieve this goal; they instead is a front-runner in the development of KPIs. While
focus on input variables or drown themselves in their journey is far from concluded, their lessons
long lists of conflicting goals and KPIs. Thus, PES can be an important source of inspiration for other
should critically think about the most important PES. See the case study below.

CASE STUDY: KPIS IN ESTONIA The new set of indicators was developed with
help from the University of Tartu and a pilot was
The Estonian PES is continuously developing its executed using a regression-adjusted multi-cri-
performance measurement system and is cur- teria evaluation system to measure the perfor-
rently in the process of developing a new set mance of PES. One key metric (utility) is used
of key performance indicators. The development that consists of four main performance indica-
of a data warehouse (ready in 2018) will allow tors; 1) reduction of unemployment, 2) support
the PES to automate performance measurement of the employed, 3) activation of the inactive
and impact evaluation. and 4) cost-effectiveness of the PES. Under
these main indicators lie 14 sub-indicators
measuring various aspects of the performance.

Reduce unemployment

Support the employed

EUIF utility
Activate the inactive

Cost-effectiveness of EUIF

The model uses standardised coefficients and While being a work in progress, it shows prom-
regression adjustment to make periods and ising progress and could be an inspiration
regions comparable, thus leading to a mod- for PES also wishing to start measuring their
el where the performance of the PES can be performance.
measured accurately and different periods and
regions can be compared.

Measuring, evaluating and adjusting (as part of creating an MVS) or measure progress
at set intervals. Examples of such methods are:
Once the PES has defined their KPIs, it is time to
collect the relevant data to measure against the ●● Pilots. These are (smaller scale) tests of
KPIs. The Analytical Paper on Modernising PES a new process and/or application. These can
through supportive data and IT strategies (Piet- help can input into the relevance of a digital
erson, 2016), sheds some light on relevant types tool for the PES and/or test its effectiveness.
and methods of data collection. It discriminates ●● Experiments. These are studies where
between discrete (initial or incidental) methods of different versions of a process and/or
data collection and continuous forms of data collec- application are compared. For example, if a PES
tion. The former is often used to inform a strategy develops a new profiling application, they can
 33

build two versions of the same application and cedures of the PES. The big benefit of this approach
test which one performs better. is that it allows to more continuously track progress
●● Evaluations. These are projects aimed towards goals and make adjustments more often.
at assessing the effectiveness of a tool, Such an approach could work well in more adaptive
application or process. strategies. Methods of continuous data collection
also allow to show this data to relevant audiences.
Commonly, methods such as (customer satis- More and more organisations make use of Dash-
faction) surveys are used to gain broader and boards or other management information systems
more quantitative insights from large groups of to show realtime information about processes that
stakeholders. can be used to inform decision making.

The latter form (of continuous collection) refers to A dashboard work in progress was shown by Estonia
the ongoing extraction from data from IT systems. as part of their KPI project, which gathered interest
In these types of data collection, very often the col- as an easy way to navigate the data collected. This
lection and analysis of the data are part of the IT was enhanced further by the Danish presentation
system. This means that analytics work in the back- in which dashboards used in Denmark for Citizens,
ground and are embedded in the systems and pro- Case-workers and Employers were shown.

Citizen Case-worker Employer

The main purpose of measurement is to create The last step, after evaluation is to make adjust-
the ability to evaluate progress towards KPIs. ments. These can be small, for example in the User
As discussed in the Analytical Paper on Modernis- Interface (UI)/User Experience (UX) of an application
ing PES, the purpose of evaluation is to learn about based on the outcome of a pilot, but could also lead
something and to improve upon experiences. Ac- to bigger revisions in the strategy or underlying vi-
cording to Rosset and Sheldon (2001), evaluation sion. For example, when newer technologies come
is ‘the process of examining a program or process up (such as social media in the mid 2000s) and PES
to determine what’s working, what’s not, and why. It learn through research that clients show an interest
determines the value of learning and training pro- in said technology, the organisation should have the
grams and acts as blueprints for judgement and im- ability to change course and refocus attention. This
provement’. While, ideally, in continuous processes, reiterates points made previously in this thematic
the evaluation is a standard part of the cycle, for paper (and is somewhat of a catch 22): PES need
the sake of accountability and reporting, evalua- to develop (digital) visions and strategies that guide
tions are often conducted as stand-alone activities. the organisation in a certain direction and have con-
For example, a digital team in a PES could decide crete goals, while at the same being ambiguous and
to have monthly evaluations, whereas at the senior wide enough in order to not stifle the strategy and
management progress is being evaluated quarterly. allow the organisation enough flexibility to be agile
and adapt to the increasingly volatile environment
in which they operate.
34

5. CONCLUSIONS
The world of PES is changing quickly and (technical) sational evolution driven and executed by humans.
innovations are arriving in rapid succession. These Failures stem most often from human factors, such
innovations are likely to impact the labour market as poor leadership, lack of employee or customer
in the coming decades. For example, automation adoption, lack of digital skills, or poor collabora-
could lead to job loss and job creation and will likely tion in the organisation resulting in silos. The digi-
change the majority of jobs. This will probably have tal strategy, therefore, should focus on the humans
strong impacts on the role and workload of PES. working with technology and technology serving
Furthermore, these innovations create challeng- people. This turns the ‘digital’ part of the strategy
es and opportunities for PES. Automation has into a means, not an end in itself. Therefore, it is
the possibility to create more effective and efficient wise to describe the desired results of the strategy
PES workflows, but at the same time are PES being in terms of human or organisational aspects (e.g.
held back by a lack of resources and resistance to more successful job matching) instead of purely
change in the organisation. technical terms (e.g. implement automated vacancy
matching) and subsequently determine how tech-
As a result, PES need to change, become more digi- nology can play a role in reaching these goals.
tal, change more frequently, while being nimble with
resources. PES need to be ‘digitally strategic’, they Good strategies are adaptive,
need to invest in visions for the future that help agile and focused
guide the organisation and develop clear goal based
strategies that are modular and can be executed in Both the analysis in the paper, as well as the dis-
small steps and using agile approaches. Execution cussions during the TRW teach us important lessons
should be guided by research and experimenta- about the need for strategies to be flexible, adap-
tion and involve employees, customer and (strong) tive or agile. The first is that comprehensive strate-
leadership. gies are much more difficult to execute in terms of
a) finding the required resources and b) executing
No small challenge and we hope the following con- upon the strategy for example in terms of prior-
clusions/recommendations derived from this main itisation, managing the dependencies between the
conclusion can be of help: different elements and breaking the strategy down
in meaningful and practical projects. The second
Importance of vision is that as strategies become bigger and more en-
compassing, the risk of failure of the entire strat-
The first step of a successful digital transforma- egy increases. The solution seems to be in creating
tion is having an idea of where the organisation is a modular strategy that is easily broken down in
headed in the foreseeable future. This consists of elements that can be executed as independently as
the mission of the organisation, relevant techno- possible. This includes a clear prioritisation to tackle
logical and societal developments, customer and first what will have most impact e.g. registration,
employee skills, behaviours, and needs and the statistical profiling. This requires an agile approach
vision of the organisation’s leadership. This vision of development. Agility and small teams work bet-
drives the organisation and the various strategies ter than large scale transformations.
within the organisation. As key strategy, the digital
strategy needs to build on this vision and be coher- Use research to guide development
ent with other strategies as to not create conflict.
A well-defined vision can motivate the organisation Not only should the PES adopt data driven ap-
and lead to realistic strategies that can be executed. proaches to measure success of the strategy (see
next point), but research can play a vital role in cre-
Strategy is about people, not technology ating the vision and strategy and guide their execu-
tion. Research can help understand the playing field
While digital strategy suggests a heavy focus on (for example in understanding the aforementioned
technology, digitalisation in the end is not about technological and societal developments, customer
technical revolution, but much more about organi- needs and the abilities of customers and employees
 35

to adopt and utilise tools), but also while executing Involve, and build for, employees
the strategy. The TRW and this paper highlighted
the need to experiment, learn from pilots and share When creating digital strategies, we should not
experiences. Such experiments allow the PES to dis- overlook the development of tools for case-work-
cover early on and quickly what works and what ers and other PES employees. Much can be gained,
does not and lead to adjustments in the strategy. in digitalisation, from improving the work of PES
Therefore, we see experimentation and research as front-line staff, whether it is developing administra-
a fundamental ingredient of a good adaptive digital tive tools or decision support systems can help in
strategy. freeing up valuable time to deal with clients. Fur-
thermore, caseworkers often can provide important
Create clear goals and KPIs insights from their interactions with clients that
and create learning cycles can help shape the strategy. Lastly, staff can act
as change-agents that help execute the strategy
Being able to measure progress and success is and the more involved they are in the creation of
a key factor in successful execution of the strategy. the strategy, the more likely they are to support it
However, in order to do so, PES need to translate and advocate for it.
the digital strategy into a 1) series of objectives and
KPIs and 2) create learning cycles in which data is Leadership
collected against these KPIs, outcomes are evalu-
ated and used to continue and/or make relevant The last conclusion we draw pertains to the role
discussions. The more concretely the vision of the of leadership. A vision and strategy are nothing
organisation is articulated, the easier it will be to without proper leadership. And while we want to
create strategies whose success can be measured emphasize the importance of involving all staff, it
(and thus achieved). Therefore, while creating the is the organisations leadership that will most likely
strategy, it is wise to think about objectives and be accountable for the vision and strategy and are
measurement from the start. instrumental in their success. The need for leader-
ship was also mentioned as key factor for success
Continuous data collection and the use of smart during the TRW. Therefore, PES leadership needs
dashboards to present outcomes can be good ways to be aware of digital trends and developments,
to make insights available to large parts of the or- develop their digital skills and actively guide their
ganisation and get results quickly. We see this as organisation through digital transformations.
another key ingredient to creating and implement-
ing adaptive, agile strategies.
36

6. REFERENCES
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•• O’Donovan, D. & Flower, N.R. (2013). The Strategic Plan is Dead. Long Live Strategy. Stanford
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European Commission.
38

APPENDIX 1: OECD (2014) STEPS

OECD (2014) creates a 12 step guide and:

RECOMMENDS that governments develop and implement digital government strategies which:

1. Ensure greater transparency, openness and inclusiveness of government processes and operations.

2. Encourage engagement and participation of public, private and civil society stakeholders in policy
making and public service design and delivery.

3. Create a data-driven culture in the public sector.

4. Reflect a risk management approach to addressing digital security and privacy issues, and include
the adoption of effective and appropriate security measures, so as to increase confidence on govern-
ment services.

RECOMMENDS that, in developing their digital government strategies, governments should:

5. Secure leadership and political commitment to the strategy.

6. Ensure coherent use of digital technologies across policy areas and levels of government.

7. Establish effective organisational and governance frameworks to co-ordinate the implementation

of the digital strategy within and across levels of government.

8. Strengthen international co-operation with other governments to better serve citizens and busi-
nesses across borders, and maximise the benefits that can emerge from early knowledge sharing
and co‑ordination of digital strategies internationally.

RECOMMENDS that, in implementing the digital government strategies, governments should:

9. Develop clear business cases to sustain the funding and focused implementation of digital technolo-
gies projects.

10. Reinforce institutional capacities to manage and monitor projects’ implementation.

11. Procure digital technologies based on assessment of existing assets.

12. Ensure that general and sector-specific legal and regulatory frameworks allow digital opportunities
to be seized.
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