In our previous post, we dove into some of the challenges government agencies and other public sector organizations face and how, in order to keep up with constituents’ evolving expectations, it’s past time to integrate a CRM system to make everyone’s lives easier. Here are a few additional reasons (in case you aren’t already convinced):
Government agency leaders require access to accurate, real-time, and comprehensive data to make informed decisions, optimize their operations, field data requests from legislatures, and, in some cases, justify their funding. For instance, how many EMTs were trained last year with a certain level of funding, or how many nurses were added to the workforce? In theory, this information should be readily available, but compiling this data quickly is both time consuming (how’s that for an oxymoron) and nearly impossible due to multiple data sources and silos. There lacks a “single source of truth,” which results in obstructed business processes, thereby hindering the agency’s responsiveness to evolving challenges.
To address these challenges, agency leaders can benefit from a centralized, customizable dashboard that consolidates essential metrics and data from various sources, empowering them to make data-driven decisions swiftly and streamline business processes.
In many situations, government agencies are handling large sums of money that need to be dispersed to constituents quickly, safely, and thoroughly, especially to avoid fraud. We saw this first hand during the COVID-19 pandemic when billions of dollars from our unemployment systems ended up in the wrong hands. Yes, billions.
On the flip side, in the case of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) during the first two years of the pandemic, it received hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency rental assistance (ERA) funding through the CARES Act to help combat the pandemic’s economic impact. But that funding required specific benchmarks for its use, and the IHCDA did not have the technical infrastructure to support the new volume of vulnerable renters and landlords.
We were able to work hand-in-hand with IHCDA to re-platform its rental assistance system in order to deliver typical grants management capabilities with the speed, clarity, and security required of an emergency response scenario in both English and Spanish. One key way we helped their process was through self-service digital intake forms. Whereas the old method required manual efforts using spreadsheets, residents eligible for funding could now create a profile on their own by completing a series of dynamic fields that captured basic information. This has helped their team focus more time and energy on the work that is truly mission-critical.
As technology has accelerated and much of our world becomes digitized, not everything has kept up, and that holds especially true within government agencies. In some instances in life, it doesn’t hurt to have a paper copy of a document. But when it comes to decades upon decades worth of documents that are gathering dust in the basement of some high-rise building, efficiencies are minimized when you rely on a human to track something down. But just because something is digitized doesn’t mean it’s efficient. We often see folders and folders of PDFs – which are not well organized or easily accessible – rather than a CRM, which are often used by public sector agencies for applications and forms of all kinds. Imagine trying to track down critical data that can’t be reported on because it’s stuck in a 10-page PDF.
In a world where data and technology play a pivotal role in effective governance, and where trust in government increases when digital experiences meet consumer expectations, government agencies and others within the public sector must adjust accordingly. By embracing a comprehensive approach with a platform like Salesforce that can consolidate data, streamline processes, and enhance the experiences of state employees, agency leaders, and constituents, – with the guidance and expertise of an agency like Studio Science – they can transform into modern, efficient, and citizen-centric organizations.
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