Need to do something digital? Analytics is fantastic place to start!
Since joining itelligent-i a lot of my focus has been on where Data Analytics fits into wider digital transformation in Local Government. This blog reveals 3 key roles I believe Analytics should play in digital transformation.
- Enabling evidence-based digital investment decisions.
An increasing number of authorities recognise that Digital is a step change and therefore a coordinated multi-million programme investment is essential to move technology and processes into the digital age. However, we see little real data-based evidence supporting the investment in a range of solutions, while significant savings ambitions have been agreed on the back of the investment.
It’s not that the data isn’t there to inform such decisions. Councils are potentially very data rich. The data is just spread across too many sources both internally and externally to bring it together to inform investment decisions. Some of the Councils we are working with are now identifying data analytics as the priority digital investment, in part to specifically inform where Digital investment can have the greatest impact.
- Supporting digital innovation and iterative delivery
There have been some great digital successes in Local Government, but too often digital transformation has been delivered based on anything but data informed decisions and far too regularly no transformation at all is embedded following significant investment. There might be some ‘new stuff’ in the mix, but really the value stream remains the same as does the service culture.
This failure to embed change is not exclusively down to lacking insight, but in previous transformation roles I always struggled with the lack of data essential to embedding change. Trying to practice iterative service development without data to support Plan, Do, Check, Act is pretty-close to impossible but like most of my transformational colleagues I spent years in practicing exactly that.
By delivering up to date automated insights that can run alongside an agile project, digital service development teams can iterate based on evidence, not personal preference, hubris or anecdote. Through this digital innovation can become experience driven whole-system evolution.
- Quickly releasing the added value of Cloud and delivering digital automation
In my time at itelligent-i I have recognised that nearly all large Councils are spending millions manually producing data-based reports. These reports are often rows of numbers, developed in a range of systems from data that is manually extracted, checked and transformed into something ‘useable’. They are then distributed as pdfs, word docs, excel files by email and even hard copy!
itelligent-i has successfully worked with a range of Council’s to build an entirely Azure Cloud based analytics platform that fully automates the on-going production and distribution of visual interactive analytics. These analytics use the power of Cloud to bring together data from every conceivable internal and external source, enable standardised digital transformation by analysts that can be then automated to update as often as needed. Through the Cloud users inside and outside the Council can access and interact with the analytics with the Council securely tracking and controlling all access and even automating large parts of data use and access auditing. Insights can trigger alerts direct to users, so pertinent information is pushed to decision makers or operators.
Finally, building a truly digital foundation for analytical delivery also provides the right foundation for utilising the vast amount of data IoT can offer while enabling Councils to begin to play with predictive analytics and ensure AI is able to access clean, quality data.
Building good data analytics is essential to informing digital investment, enabling digital delivery and if done right is a true end to end digital transformation waiting to happen. To find out more www.itelligent-i.com and join the data-driven digital revolution.
