The Power of Process Optimization and Digital-First Service Design

One of our teams at Perry Group focuses on process optimization and digital first service re-design - that is, how the service would operate if it was delivered as a complete, end-to-end digital service.

It’s an area that we love to work on, because it frees municipal staff to think outside the box, it easily, quickly, and most importantly cost effectively, illustrates the potential for service improvement, and what it would take to make it happen. Importantly, it also get’s people excited about possibilities and builds a buzz around change, rather than fear and uncertainty.

The resulting service or process blueprint that we prepare identifies people, process, technology, policy and business model changes that will be required to realize the new way of delivering the service, which reduces complexity and process steps, achieves time savings and unlocks much needed staff capacity.

To date, we’ve worked with more than 30 municipalities, conducted over 250 reviews, and have identified more than $13M in collective potential savings and cost avoidance.

Reviewing a service is led by one of our experienced municipal process optimizers, and can take a municipal team less than a day of their time. A typical cost is around $5,000. In many cases we have developed playbooks, trained and mentored teams in the municipality to use and apply the method themselves.

With ever increasing pressures on municipal finances and staffing, and continued economic uncertainty, identifying ways to do more with less is the order of the day. We took this opportunity to look back over our work and identify the top 10 areas where we have identified significant opportunity.

We found that the following areas are where our teams have identified the highest potential returns:

1. Service Request Management / Customer Service

2. Waste Management including collection, cart replacement, bag tags

3. Permits, Licences and Development Applications

4. Housing Management: rent and maintenance requests

5. Food safety complaints and inspections

6. Procure to Pay

7. Time, attendance and scheduling

8. Immunization management

9. Parking inquiries, permits, tickets & appeals

10. Utility Locates

Regardless of your size, you might be surprised how time consuming it is to operate even what to the outside seem like the simplest programs - such as a garbage bag tag program. There is often hidden complexity, that drives up costs.

If you haven’t recently (in the last 3 years) reviewed how you are handling work in these areas - it's highly likely that there are potential savings to be found in these areas.

For those looking to learn more, Perry Group is here to help. We specialize in optimizing municipal processes and designing services for the digital age - so let’s start the conversation.