The public administration is on the right track in integrating online and offline contact channels. Accomplishing the health emergency, which has undoubtedly accelerated this process, the public sector has begun to reflect on the role of individual contact points with citizens and work towards integrating the different channels. Today, almost all public bodies (98%) offer the possibility to book a service online and use it offline. These are the data from the latest report on digitalising sales channels in the public administration sector, produced by the Digital Innovation Observatories of Milan’s Politecnico in collaboration with Minsait.
According to the report, public organisations are also reviewing the role of physical touchpoints: counters are no longer a space dedicated to accessing services but are being transformed into a cross-channel support point for the user at all stages of the interaction process with authority. In this case, the technological solutions implemented most frequently concern online booking systems for the counter visit (implemented by 96% of organisations), answers to enable digital payment for public services at counters (95%), systems for virtual queue management (85%), and solutions to collect and integrate information on the individual user (through, for example, interactive totems for profiling) to have a single view of the customer, adopted by 24% of public bodies.
No more barriers
To date, a barrier to integrating activities and processes related to individual channels is a clash of functions and difficulties in breaking down silos. In fact, 18% of public administrations manage each channel independently (in silos), through a process or an ad hoc manager per channel. Despite having silo management, thirty-four per cent of the entities state that they have established coordination mechanisms between the functions of the different channels. But there is also a good proportion of public companies that are trying to overcome these difficulties. Twenty-two per cent have introduced a cross-functional manager with an ad hoc team dedicated to coordinating the different channels. In comparison, 26% of the sample have set up a corporate function devoted entirely to the integrated management of the different contact points.
“The interoperability and integration of online and offline channels for public administration organisations bring tangible benefits, facilitating access to services, improving efficiency and enhancing the citizen experience. Synergistic interaction between these channels allows for comprehensive and customised solutions, enabling more effective communication, faster flow of information, and greater transparency in the management of administrative activities,” says Giuseppe Catarinozzi, director of Minsait’s Public Administration market in Italy.
Contact channels: Transition to the Cloud
Two decisive challenges for the success of the digitisation process of public administration channels concern the transition to the Cloud and information security. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRP) has allocated substantial funds to digitise PA by directing it to a Cloud First principle. According to the report, except for the website, which resides in the Cloud for more than half of the surveyed entities, the other channels surveyed (Mobile App, Contact Centre and counters) are still managed in the entity’s Data Centre. Nevertheless, many organisations plan to migrate these systems to the Cloud in 12 months.
The main advantages of the Cloud for public sector organisations include scalability to adapt to new or changing needs (significant motivation for Cloud adoption in 96% of cases), speed to experiment with innovative solutions (85%) and usability of solutions (74%), which facilitates the effective adoption of tools and the transformation of processes. Among the main problems, public organisations highlight the variability of Operations costs for 67% of the sample and the lack of skills for 40% of companies.
The cybersecurity aspect
Security also plays a crucial role in the PA digitization process to ensure citizens can access services remotely, often handling critical or sensitive data. According to the report, 79% of PAs provide their users with both proprietary credentials and national digital identity systems (such as SPID and CIE) to guarantee secure access to their online services.
In 18 per cent of cases, proprietary credentials are sufficient, while in the remaining 3 per cent, access can only occur through national digital identities. This survey shows a general delay concerning the provisions of the current legislation. According to the requirements of the Simplification Decree, all local and central administrations should have integrated SPID and CIE as authentication and access systems for digital public services as of February 2021.
Moreover, within the public administration, there needs to be more attention to identifying potential security vulnerabilities that may involve cloud-based applications and infrastructures, which cybercriminals can exploit as an entry point to implement malicious actions in corporate systems. Thirty-seven per cent of organizations appear not to have yet defined a clear strategy for recognizing vulnerabilities in applications and infrastructures. Of these, 35 per cent only occasionally carry out identification activities, while the remaining two per cent do not carry out any form of security assessment.
