Channel Shift White Paper

Neopost : Channel Shift

©2015 Neopost 3

Introduction

©2014 Neopost

in association with

May 2015

Channel Shift


©2015 Neopost 2

Contents

Introduction. 03

Digital Service Delivery. 04

Digital Technologies. 05

What does Digital Government Involve? 06

Enabling Channel Shift and Digital by Default. 07

UItilising Open Standards. 08

Realising the Benefits of Channel Shift. 09

Areas for Deployment of Channel Shift 10

Conclusion. 11

Next Steps / About Neopost. 11

...The pace of the

digital environment

has accelerated

the need for

change and is

revolutionising how

government and

citizens interact....


©2015 Neopost

Introduction

3

Nearly 15 years ago the first work around e-government was introduced, relating to the digitisation of governmental services. The pace of the digital environment has accelerated the need for change and is revolutionising how government and citizens interact. For example in their Digital Strategy document of 2012 Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) noted that some 813 million transactions were processed digitally each year. This illustrates growth rates of circa 85%. The ‘always on’ culture and the essential nature of digitisation are factors that drive deep and pervasive change in how we expect to interact, in our day to day lives.

Channel Shift or Digital by Default is a key initiative for both central government and the wider public sector. Policy dictates a drive to introduce more digital services, on the basis of increased efficiencies in line with digital migration. For many public sector organisations, as well as increased efficiencies and sustainable cost savings, there is a drive to introduce more self serve public services. From an audience perspective Channel Shift is designed to focus on improving citizen engagement and accessibility to frontline services, as well as improving day to day operations and interactions with citizens and other key stakeholders. Whilst there is a push towards digital migration, organisations should be mindful of maintaining their interactions with certain members of their communities, through aligned traditional paper based methods, where personal preference dictates this is most appropriate.

With particular regard to public service, what does digitisation look like and what needs to be done to enable such services in the future? This document looks to understand these requirements going forward.

The Digital by Default policy and the overwhelming drive for channel shift are clearly visible within public service. But, why this drive and what are the perceived benefits? There are a number of associated benefits, which can be categorised into a few broad areas.

Firstly, and most unsurprisingly, austerity has given greater focus on the need to introduce sustainable cost savings. Central Government and the wider public sector, on an ongoing basis, are driven to maintain and improve frontline services, but with reduced resource and at lower deliverable costs. When deployed correctly, the digitisation of public services and how citizens interact can deliver tangible and significant savings, thus protecting the public purse.

Secondly, it is important to look at channel shift in the context of individual processes. Whilst a ‘big bang’ approach can certainly create impact, usually a more considered approach to individual processes and circumstances will deliver greater benefits over the longer term.

The final category revolves around change and transformation. In order to deliver channel shift effectively, and certainly to maximise the associated benefits, organisations may have to radically rethink their communications strategies. Of particular importance is a need to consider how communications support digital processes, particularly around self-service propositions. Of primary importance is investigating how to engage with citizens, to manage demand and direct them to new self service channels. It is important to note that whilst this remains a key driver a strategy encompassing new and traditional media is important, in order to maintain engagement across all demographics with citizens.

Continued...


©2015 Neopost 4

Digital Service Delivery

The UK government has consistently reiterated its commitment to digital service delivery and encouraging citizens to interact online with public services. This commitment is based on the belief that digital contact should be the channel of first resort for citizens and businesses alike. The commitment can be clearly evidenced by various policy documents and the establishment of the Government Digital Service (GDS). A further aspect of the Digital by Default programme is the £10 million investment decision in the Identity Assurance element of the programme. This initiative is all

about delivering a better, faster and safer way of citizens proving who they are, when accessing government/public services.

More information on this topic can be found at the GDS website:https://gds.blog.gov.uk/category/id-assurance/

Outside of the Public Sector, the UK is seeing further rapid increases in digital delivery. More than 54% of UK adults now use internet banking and e-commerce represents nearly 17% of total UK sales, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Demographics also have

an important part to play, with over a quarter of adults and half the UK’s teenagers now using smartphones.

Going back to 2006 the Varney Report identified the importance of removing avoidable contact and migrating to lower cost channels in public service. In Sir Peter Gershon’s review of public sector efficiency, a savings target of £21.5 billion was identified. Latterly, the report produced by Price Waterhouse Coopers and Martha Lane Fox stated that each contact and transaction switched to online channels could realise savings of between £3.30 and £12.00.

Whilst increasing digital services is the preferred method for many stakeholders, organisations should not forget the ‘digitally disenfranchised’ and those whose preference is still for traditional paper based communication. Although changing, demographics clearly indicate an audience for traditional methods still exists.

The graph (right) highlights the variance in age demographics of citizens who have not used the internet in the past 12 months. The total suggests some significant numbers of stakeholders still have a preference for traditional communications.

...continued

15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

Source: Brand Science Results Vault

8.8m adults stated they have not used the internet in the last 12 months

n Yes n No


©2015 Neopost 5

Digital Technologies

As mentioned previously, government is faced with the increasing challenge of balancing competing demands. How can public service delivery be maintained with ongoing economic and financial constraints? Efficiencies and effectiveness can be best delivered by matching service models with citizen preferences in channel. Invariably, managing such complex demands requires innovative approaches to service propositions and delivery.

Modern technologies increasingly emphasise speed and mobility. Although driven from personal circumstance, such attitudes will invariable migrate to expectations around delivery of public services.

For example, Accenture’s Technology Vision sees “every business as a digital business”, pinpointing digitisation as a key enabler of strategic change.

Such a viewpoint is highly relevant to the public sector, in particular the need for government to develop relationships at scale. There is a requirement for public sector organisations to communicate with the public at large, whilst including the ability to engage with citizens as individuals.

Australia France Germany India United United Kingdom States

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

n % Citizens using Digital Channels

n % Citizens Placing Importance of Increasing Digital Channels

Taking a global perspective, it is interesting to observe the varying expectations of citizens with digital channels, in terms of the extent they are used and expectations around further services:

Source: Accenture Research 2012

Efficiencies and

effectiveness can

be best delivered

by matching

service models

with citizen

preferences in

channel.


©2015 Neopost 6

What Does Digital Government Involve?

Personalised citizen and business identifiers to present a single customer view

Mobility and portable devices help serve citizens with ‘anytime-anywhere’ service delivery

Analytics can help cope with Big Data and provide greater insight in proactive public services

Cloud based IT architecture to gain flexibility and reduce cost

New technologies and social media to serve citizens more effectively

Interactive governance can enable governments to build deeper and more effective relationships

A new generation of processes and tools can build more productive public services

Connected health uses knowledge and technology for more efficient and effective healthcare

Digital government can be a broad, generic term and can be interpreted in many ways. In order to fully understand the relevance there are a number of aspects to consider. The major aspects for consideration are given below:


©2015 Neopost 7

Enabling Channel Shift and Digital by Default

The challenge to UK public sector organisations, set by the digital initiative, is simple in concept. Going forward, public services should be delivered in a simple and straightforward manner, so that those that choose to use them are encouraged to do so. It is important that, alongside this, those who are unable to participate should not be excluded. As a result, in order to maintain accessibility, flexible and multichannel approaches should be deployed, in line with agile working practises.

Whilst the vision is clear, enabling such a strategy may not be quite so obvious. It is likely that the data required to enable the delivery of digital services is not easily accessible. Often the required information is contained within complex legacy systems. Gaining access to all the required information could easily be one of channel shift’s greatest challenges.

In initiating the channel shift journey it is paramount to maintain focus on key organisational objectives. With this in mind, we can identify five themes on which to maintain focus:

The service user is paramountDigital services should be designed from the user, or citizen’s perspective. The best way of successful delivery is to ensure that user engagement is maximised. It is most appropriate to adopt agile practises in this area, to ensure that changing citizen requirements are catered for. It is equally important that supporting business processes are equally agile in design.

Going forward,

public services

should be

delivered in a

simple and

straightforward

manner...


©2015 Neopost 8

Utilising open standards

Having digital services based on open architecture is essential. Such a structure allows public sector organisations to separate service elements that are bespoke, from those that can be accessed in a more commoditised manner. The latter can often be secured through platforms such as compliant framework agreements, such as Crown Commercial Services RM1063 or, indeed, G-Cloud.

When considering the increasing pace of change, adopting a device and platform agnostic solution is vital. Services provided through digital channels need to consider not just accessibility today, but likely future preferences.

Business process transformation is an enablerA significant consequence of channel shift and digital migration is the way in which organisations deliver. Well designed digital services should enable productive and cost effective business processes, in order to ensure sustainability.

It is well documented that digital services can reduce the cost of delivery, however this can be impacted or even negated if supporting business processes are not suitably robust. Without considering internal processes, the outcome could easily be channel proliferation rather than channel shift. That is to say, an organisation could add greatly to the cost of delivery by simply adding channels rather than actively encouraging a shift in usage patterns.

Integrating enterprise systems provides benefitsFor successful implementation of digital services, any complexity in supporting enterprise systems needs to be invisible to the user. It is essential that easy access to services is in place, in order to maintain engagement and to improve the citizen experience.

Data can be a key component within the user experience. Capture and recall should be structured so that repetition of entry is not a requirement. For example, previously captured field submissions should be utilised to reduce the access time for each service, where commonality of data requirements exists.

Considerations of data security, capacity, system availability and exception handling should all be in place to ensure an effective end to end digital service, with user experience at its hub.

Accurate and timely management information is essentialWell managed organisations have always used management information to make accurate strategic decisions. However, in this increasingly digital age the nature of requirement of information is changing.

Previously, information could be accessed using offline reporting and associated analysis conducted. Inherently this approach brings with it a degree of latency and lag. Delays of days may be expected with paper-based delivery services, but with digital services delays of even hours may prove unacceptable.

Such delays can seriously impact citizen experience and confidence, as well as more organisation wide reputational damage. With channel shift, employees as well as systems need to be fully conversant with then need to react in an appropriate and timely manner. Effective communications platforms play a vital role in supporting this need.

Capture and

recall should be

structured so

that repetition of

entry is not a

requirement


©2015 Neopost 9

Realising the Benefits of Channel Shift

Throughout this paper the potential for significant savings has been mentioned. In reality, there are already many specific examples of financial benefits and cost savings that have been realised.

According to GDS potential savings of between £1.7 billion and £1.8 billion could be realised annually, through channel shift and digital services.

In looking in greater detail as to how these savings are made up, the following can be observed:

• Between £134 million and £431 million in savings from digital transactions in local government.

• Consolidated digital publishing under GOV.UK should realise between £25 million and £45 million.

• Rationalising the government’s digital asset estate is predicted to save £6 billion.

Such significant sums clearly create huge impact, but to an individual organisation are they relevant? For individual organisations it is, perhaps, more important to look at the step benefits that can be achieved from channel shift.

n Benefit per 1% in Digital Channel Shift

Analysis conducted by GDS has highlighted the benefits that can be achieved by adopting channel shift:

8 million plus

1–8 million

Under 1 million

£300,000£200,000£100,000£0


©2015 Neopost 10

Areas for Deployment of Channel ShiftChannel shift and Digital by Default touch all manner of operations and functions within central government and the whole of the wider public sector. With particular regard to enabling and delivering effective communications, there are a number of areas that organisations should look to investigate.

It is imperative that organisations employ appropriate due diligence in scoping the requirements of channel shift. It is equally important to engage with suitable partner organisations, in order to best understand the opportunities available.

When considering the steps to deploy a digital migration solution it is important not to lose sight of the reason for channel shift and not just the shift itself. Invariably improving citizen experience and delivering effective process change are paramount.

Channel Shift Aspect Benefit

Multi channel communications Maximising citizen engagement by utilising preference based channel selection. Shifting from paper based to digital delivery channels will also reduce the cost of deployment of communications. Channel considerations should include hybrid mail delivery, SMS, web based access, social media and email.

Document digitisation By migrating to digital archival solutions organisations can realise significant benefits. As well as the obvious reduction in paper based storage, effective digital archiving can significantly reduce access to citizen transactional data and hence improve citizen experience in interactions.

Digital workflow Often individual interactions are initiated by inbound communication. By receiving or translating such communication pieces into digital formats the speed of response and citizen experience can be significantly improved. Data extraction and automated document classification can also provide additional benefits.

Data management Public sector organisations are party to sizeable inbound and outbound flows of data. Often, under the influence of existing legacy systems consolidating data streams into a single meaningful citizen view can be highly problematic. By adopting a consolidated approach to data management organisations can benefit from a much more holistic and accurate view of individual citizen interactions. This can allow a practical deployment of a more personalised perception of digital services.

E-invoicing The creation and delivery of traditional paper based billing systems can be costly and suffer from a low speed of delivery. Migration to digital billing platforms can provide benefits in the form of reduced costs of production and further financial benefits through shorter payment receipt cycles.

Compliance By creating digital workflows and migrating to digital document management greater controls around the storage of data and associated audit trails can be deployed.


©2015 Neopost 11

Conclusion

Next Steps

Channel Shift and Digital by Default are progressing at pace. Within the public sector policy and direction are focused on achieving this fundamental change in the delivery of public services. To deploy effective implementation strategies, organisations should look to understand channel shift in the contact of reducing the cost of service delivery as well as maximising citizen experience and engagement, through multichannel delivery methodologies and improving the speed of response.

Effective communications not only play a part in channel shift as a direct function, but also in supporting the delivery of digital migration as a whole.

By considering the role of communication in isolation organisations could miss out on wider opportunities in delivering against channel shift priorities. Communication in context is the most effective strategy to deploy.

Neopost works closely with central government and the wider public sector in order to identify and enable the deployment of effective process improvements around channel shift.

For more information on this topic, or other aspects of effective public service delivery, please contact us on [email protected] or call on 01708 714576.

About NeopostNeopost is one of the leading vendors of public sector citizen engagement solutions in Europe. The Company has experience in deploying physical, digital and digital migration solutions across the wider public sector.

We are partner supplier to the major professional buying organisations under Pro5 (YPO, ESPO, CBC and NEPO) as well as approved suppliers to NHS Shared Business Services and Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC). We have also been awarded a place on Crown Commercial Service’s RM1063 framework agreement for Postal Goods and Services.

...organisations

should look to

understand

channel shift...


Neopost is a global player with a local presence in business solutions for the postal, parcel delivery and related digital world of tomorrow. We have an intimate understanding of physical and electronic communications and work in collaboration with over 800,000 enterprises around the world. Our business has evolved to meet the growing demands of a technology-driven environment. This means we can help our customers successfully make the transition from physical mail to quality multichannel communications management.

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Channel Shift White Paper