Though federal agencies see benefits of digital services, they are concerned over budget and cost of implementation, according to a survey by Accenture.
According to the report, government executives believe digital services help in driving improved collaboration within and across federal organizations and help to harness emerging technologies to enable people.
The report on digital deployment shows that 49 percent of respondents identified positive outcomes from digital services, including improved employee efficiency or productivity.
48 percent believes that digital services help in easy delivery of services to the customers and 37 percent said that digital tools also save customers time.
The majority of respondents with 63 percent reveal that the barrier to incorporate digital tool and services are limited budget and 50 percent said that agencies are not allocating an appropriate level of funding to support digital adoption.
The other barriers to enable digital tool are security/privacy issue with 57 percent, 44 percent says technical infrastructure is also responsible.
Coordinating across organizations, cultural resistance and technical skills with 42 percent each are other barriers.
The report, Delivering on Digital Government, said federal agencies are using digital tools to support customer s and employees and 51 percent believe agencies use digital tools for customer service, 49 percent for customer engagement and 43 percent for employee engagement.
According to the survey, 83 percent of respondents say websites are the most common digital tool used to serve customers, 53 percent uses online knowledge base/frequently asked questions, 49 percent believes in telephone self service and 48 percent use social media.
While only 25 percent says that agencies use text messages/SMS, customer relationship management (CRM) tool is used by 24 percent, 23 percent said agencies believe in mobile apps or web chats with 21 percent.
13 percent of the respondents said that they are not aware about the strategies the agencies had regarding digital tools or services and 51 percent indicates their agencies has not clearly mentioned the strategy to incorporate digital services.