UK public sector organisations welcome new data protection legislation as an opportunity to transform their content management, according to new research released by KYOCERA Document Solutions.
In collaboration with KYOCERA, iGov Survey interviewed senior individuals across 123 public sector organisations from September to October 2018 to gauge their approach to digital transformation. Of those interviewed, 87% embraced new data handling regulations as an opportunity to review their current storage systems.
These encouraging figures reflect a shift in how content is managed throughout the public sector, as an increasing amount of sensitive data is created, collected and stored every day.
When it comes to digital transformation, it’s clear that the public sector is making all the right noises and has the best intentions. Over half (58%) of respondents reported that the majority of their documents are stored digitally and 93% stated that ‘going paperless’ is a priority.
The current situation, however, shows that there’s still progress to be made, with 87% reporting a reliance on paper-based documents, and 17% stating that this was a heavy reliance. In order for digital transformation to realise its potential within the public sector it is clear that organisations need to improve their processes, perhaps by seeking external help.
Two thirds believe that their back office processes were inefficient, with the majority saying content services was a good solution.
However, the outlook for digital transformation is certainly positive. Despite staff shortages, restricted budgets and cutback pressures felt throughout the public sector, it’s clear that organisations are focussed on embracing digital, seeing new directives around handling and storing data as the chance to re-evaluate the management of data, files, and other services.
An overwhelming 96% listed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance as a high priority for their organisation. 90% see this as a necessary regulation to help improve data security, whilst 80% also see GDPR implementation as their chance to improve the public sector’s relationship with its customers.
“It was positive to find such a high percentage on board with the new data regulations and using it as an opportunity to review their current data management and processes,” said Joe Doyle, group marketing director at KYOCERA Document Solutions UK.
“In the past, organisations have been prepared to invest significant time and money in bringing in central data systems, be it for finance, HR, or CRM. While these are undoubtedly important, the public sector is finally waking up to the significant and ever-increasing volume of unstructured data it needs to tackle, such as Microsoft Office, emails and invoices to name a few.”
Doyle continued: “To embrace digital content management and abandon a paper-led approach, the UK public sector needs to transform itself. The sector has been talking about digitisation for some time now, but even when organisations brand themselves as ‘paperless’, this often means they have scanned paper documents and dumped them on a hard drive.
“Rather than solving the problem of content, this moves it to the file server and creates an additional storage problem.”
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