Function
Over Forms:

Transforming Citizen Services

MeriTalk, in partnership with DocuSign, surveyed 300 Federal, state, and local government IT and program managers to understand their digital transformation journeys and what they need to continue moving citizen services forward.

Digital Government is Gaining Momentum

of public sector leaders have felt a shift in momentum toward digital transformation in the last two years; 60% say it’s been significant 

Where is your organization with digital transformation?

37
Advanced

Aggressively expanding digital services and digitizing internal processes

56
Intermediate

Making progress, digitizing incrementally where possible

7
Novice

Just getting started or unsure

37
Advanced

Aggressively expanding digital services and digitizing internal processes

56
Intermediate

Making progress, digitizing incrementally where possible

7
Novice

Just getting started or unsure

89

have made more digitization progress in the last two years than in the past decade

But Headwinds Still Remain

Despite momentum, 88% face roadblocks that stifle progress toward digital transformation initiatives, most notably: 

#1 Security or data privacy concerns 33%
#2 Lack of available budget 30%
#3 Resistance to change from end users 28%
#4 Lack of skilled IT workforce to implement 27%

What else does your organization need
to advance digital transformation?

51

Workforce training and education

39

Committed, multi-year funding

39

Shared best practices across Federal, state, and local governments

Here’s What Successful Organizations Are Doing

Six in ten

digital transformation leaders1 strongly agree adopting e-signatures served as a gateway to more digital workflows in their organization

What steps are leading organizations
more likely to take than others?

Improving data management to streamline workflows and reduce redundancies

Expanding use of FedRAMP or StateRAMP-certified cloud providers

Leaders 54%
Others 40%
Leaders 50%
Others 27%

Improving data tagging/search-ability

Tracking social impact

Leaders 38%
Others 26%
Leaders 36%
Others 21%

What has been your organization’s most successful digital transformation project to date?

The Benefits are Real

Which of the following benefits is your organization experiencing from digital transformation investments?

#1

#2

Improved
security

Increased
operational
efficiency

#3

#4

#5

Reduced
costs

Better visibility
into the location
and status of
documents

Better compliance
with government
mandates

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

93%

feel that digital transformation is making it faster to deliver citizen services

Digitization Outlook

59
expect digital transformation budgets to increase in FY2023

Most significant opportunities to improve digitization over the next five years:

IT/Operations (asset tracking, incident reporting, etc.) 54%
Human resources (telework request forms, employee onboarding and offboarding, etc.) 43%
Facilities (security badges, front desk sign-in, parking permits, etc.) 33%
Procurement (sourcing, service level agreements, etc.) 33%

Recommendations

Look to the leaders: One in three public sector organizations are aggressively expanding digital services and digitizing internal processes. Collaborate with experienced organizations and departments to understand best practices, including adopting e-signatures and refining data management.

Promote security benefits: IT and program managers agree improving security is their top digital transformation goal. Counter security and data privacy concerns by expanding education for employees and citizens on how digitization can help government organizations cultivate trust and reduce risk.

Transform citizen services: While public sector leaders report unprecedented digitization progress, many improvements have been internal-facing. Leverage momentum and lessons learned from modernizing internal processes to build support for citizen-facing improvements – like mobile-first experiences – from the inside out.

DocuSign serves over 3,000 local, state, and Federal public sector organizations — and over a billion users — by transforming manual processes into automated, digital experiences. DocuSign eSignature and CLM are authorized at the FedRAMP Moderate Impact Level and are now available in the IL-4 environment to Department of Defense (DoD) customers.