Automation in the Public Sector

WHITE PAPER
AUTOMATION
IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
From “office” to smart government

WHITE PAPER
AUTOMATION
IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
From “office” to smart government
T-Systems International GmbH
Hahnstraße 43d
60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Authors:
Markus Naaf
Martin Kleinsorge
Dr Frank Rickermann
Organisation:
Project management: Christopher Link
Layout: Peter Brücker

AUTHORS
MARKUS NAAF
Markus Naaf is an IT graduate (RWTH Aachen) and has worked for
T-Systems (previously debis Systemhaus) since 1996.
In his various roles, some of them managerial, in development,
project management and sales, he has acquired vast experience in
areas such as telecoms (billing, CRM, network planning, etc.) and
the energy economy (smart grids, energy efficiency management,
billing for energy, etc.). As Senior Expert Sales Manager, he has been
working for several years now on issues connected with smart cities
and regions, particularly focusing on innovative eGovernment solutions at local and federal
state level. He believes that the extensive digitalisation of administration processes is one of
the keys to ensuring that Germany has the competitiveness and flexibility to meet the needs of
the global economy and social development. Markus Naaf has been a member of the German
Informatics Society (GI: Gesellschaft für Informatik) since 1984.
Tel.: +49 171 8643 587, email: markus.naaf@t-systems.com
MARTIN KLEINSORGE
Martin Kleinsorge MA studied philosophy, psychology and economics.
As an Executive Consultant, he helps clients design their IT and
business processes. He has accrued 20 years of project experience,
resulting in an in-depth knowledge of industry standards and the ability
to employ a great deal of creativity when advising on processes. In a
secondary role, he is involved in upgrading the digital portfolio for the
public sector. He would love to see us get Germany back to the top of
the EU digitalisation ranking!
Tel.: +49 177 4401 115, email: martin.kleinsorge@t-systems.com
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 6
2. A CUSTOMER JOURNEY 8
3. CURRENT SITUATION AND AIMS 12
4. PROCESS AUTOMATION 14
4.1 The hub: the automation platform 14
4.2 Integration components 17
4.3 Robot-controlled process automation 21
4.4 Data orchestration as a service 22
5. PROCESSES, DATA, IOT MANAGEMENT 24
5.1 Smart government as part of a smart service infrastructure 24
5.2 IoT service management 25
5.3 Public data under the Open Data Act 27
6. DATA PROTECTION AND LEGAL ISSUES 29
6.1 Social data and the cloud 29
6.2 Public “on-premises” data 30
6.3 Separately encrypted public data 30
6.4 Fully automated administrative decision-making 31
DR FRANK RICKERMANN
Dr Frank Rickermann has a PhD in physics and has worked for T-Systems
in various roles since 1998. As Executive Programme Manager,
he dedicates a high level of personal commitment to heading up
highly successful IT projects and programmes for clients in the public
sector, including the BA (Federal Employment Agency), BaFin (Federal
Financial Supervisory Authority), BAMF (Federal Office for Migration
and Refugees), BDBOS (Federal Agency for Public Safety Digital Radio),
BPOL (Federal Police) and BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office).
As Smart Government Tribe Lead, he is responsible for upgrading the
digital portfolio for the public sector. This covers cutting-edge issues and technologies such
as service platforms, process automation, RPA, AI/Edge, blockchain and the latest consulting
formats such as co-creation. His motto is: success comes from working with the client.
Tel.: +49 175 2410 836, email: frank.rickermann@t-systems.com
7. DIGITISING ANALOGUE INPUTS 32
7.1 The best strategy: avoiding analogue inputs 32
7.2 Incoming correspondence: paper documents, faxes, email attachments 33
7.3 Next: automating written replies 35
7.4 A member of the public phones in: digital voice processing 35

1. INTRODUCTION
Until the 1990s, IT played a supporting role in the delivery of business processes, whereas
nowadays IT is responsible for a much larger share of value creation, with automated trading
being a prime example. Automated processes run more quickly and more accurately, and the
valuable “employee” resource can take on more intelligent, less routine tasks. Automation is
not an end in itself; it has to keep pace with what is technically feasible and also with automation
needs and pressures as realistically assessed.
The motivations behind the desire for automation differ from sector to sector. As well as a
shortage of skilled labour, companies and public authorities need to take into account factors
such as cost pressure, the need to modernise, the frenzy for regulation and the ability to
compete. In this context, the need to remain competitive, particularly for public authorities,
tends to come from “competition between authorities” or from politicians deliberating whether
to privatise authorities, or even commission companies to perform public sector duties as
“entrusted agencies”.
Automation does not necessarily have to be externally induced. Whatever the extent of outside
influences, a well implemented continuous improvement process in a company or public
authority will ensure that processes run more effectively and efficiently and are smarter, which
inevitably leads to more automation. Though exaggerated, the diagram below shows the working
practice that is common in many companies and public authorities.
Public authorities are more directly subject to politicians’ eagerness to intervene than is the
case with companies via market regulation. With the OZG (Online Access Act), for example,
the state is committed to ensuring that all administrative services are also provided digitally
(i.e. online) by 2022 at national, federal state and local levels. In the course of implementing
the OZG, 575 services from the public administration service catalogue (LeiKa) need to be
digitised. However, this political pressure also offers opportunities:
· Given this complex mix of internal and external influences, how can any automation of
administration processes, in the sense of smart government, succeed?
· How can members of the public, municipal businesses and, in the context of economic
funding, local companies be more closely involved in administration processes so that the
public and local companies do not feel excluded from administrative activities?
· How can there be an adequate response to the challenges of automating processes within
and between public authorities?
· How can those involved be offered cutting-edge digital services? After all, modern IT is also
a key part of our lifestyle and everyday culture – the public and others involved do not want
anything that is inferior to market standards from processes in the public sector.
· How can the public administration offer value-added services that, for example, come from
supplying mass public data (open data)?
· How can process automations support new, more flexible work models?
Work
Emails, spreadsheets, forms, phone calls,
unstructured data
Departments
This white paper sets out paths and solutions that can enable the transformation from traditional
office to smart government to succeed through automation.
Disruptions
Enquiries
Applications
Jobs/Tasks
Orders
Sub-departments
Purchasing
IT/Security
HR
Finance
The terms “automation” and “digitisation” are used synonymously to a certain extent in
everyday speech, though sometimes one of the terms is encompassed within the other. This
document uses “digitisation” in its narrower, original sense, i.e. making things that are analogue
digital (forms/paper documents, sound/voice, images/code). Automation is thus the
more general term.
Figure 1: Breaking away from traditional working practices. But how?
6 7