SAP’s Brian Roach: Digitizing Operations, Investing in Workforce Key to Improving Citizen Services

Brian Roach, managing director for U.S. regulated industries at SAP’s North American arm, has said that agencies must focus on optimizing internal processes and investing in digital transformation and talent to improve citizen services.

In a GCN piece published Thursday, Roach wrote that digitizing services will help agencies redeploy personnel to crucial tasks and analyze data that will help inform future development initiatives.

He added that agencies must implement performance metrics that promote accountability and launch efforts to hire, train and retain young and tech-savvy personnel to help improve their citizen services.

“Government agencies can’t be effective if they aren’t accountable, and they can’t be accountable without measuring their output,” said Roach “Solving for this key internal efficiency is a vital step toward meaningful cost savings that can be refocused on more important priorities.”

Previously, SAP underwrote a study titled “Purpose-Driven Government: Leveraging Data to Improve Citizen Services” which found that 35 percent of surveyed government employees reported no single point of contact for their agencies’ citizen services. 

Thirty percent also cited performance management as the primary operational area in need of transformation.