Delivering Digital Services

The dynamics of the world’s pervasive digital technologies is transforming organisations and enabling enterprises to create sustainable competitive advantage. This presents huge economic opportunities for Africa. This book responds to the need for African enterprises and organisations—particularly those in the service sector—to fully exploit the inherent potential in digital platforms by putting in place processes to respond effectively to changing consumer demands. Digital service delivery is conceptualised as a key driver of effective management and service delivery across the value chain of businesses. The authors offer insights into the opportunities, drivers, structures, and models of digital service delivery specific to the African context, using case studies and country-based themes that highlight how the adoption of digital platforms and practices can transform service delivery for value-creation. The book examines the scope and applications of digital businesses, emphasising the emergence, value-creation, and strategic implications for Africa’s private and public enterprises. Students, entrepreneurs, IT innovators, academics, and policymakers will gain a greater understanding of how digitalisation is shaping consumer expectations, industry practices, and service delivery in Africa.

This book is a guide to building a digital institution. It explains how a growing band of reformers in businesses and governments around the world have helped their organisations pivot to a new way of working, and what lessons others can learn from their experience.

The government reform expert and acclaimed author of The Solution Revolution presents a roadmap for navigating the digital government era. In October 2013, HealthCare.gov went live—and promptly crashed. Poor website design was getting in the way of government operations, and the need for digital excellence in public institutions was suddenly crystal clear. Hundreds of the tech industry’s best and brightest dedicated themselves to redesigning the government’s industrial-era frameworks as fully digital systems. But to take Washington into the 21st century, we have to start by imagining a new kind of government. Imagine prison systems that use digital technology to return nonviolent offenders promptly and securely into society. Imagine a veteran’s health care system built around delivering a personalized customer experience for every Vet. We now have the digital tools—such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and analytics—to stage a real transformation. Delivering on Digital provides the handbook to make it happen. A leading authority on government reform, William D. Eggers knows how we can use tech-savvy teams, strong leadership, and innovative practices to reduce the risks and truly achieve a digitally transformed government.

Lifelong learning is currently a major concern of governments who wish to see their citizens remain employable while the job market changes. Critical to this are digital learning centres where learning is delivered through internet access or via CD-based packages. Access to these turns public libraries and community networks into 'multi media neighbourhood superstores' where print-based learning materials are enhanced by multimedia. The multiplicity of sources of learning materials and experiences reinforces and extends the traditional role of the librarian as mediator between the user and their needs. To support and foster these activities frontline public library and community network staff must be capable of offering user support and advice in a much wider arena. This requires training in new knowledge and skill sets. This timely new book offers practical guidance and expertise for public library and community network staff in setting up, running and developing an effective digital learning centre based within the People's Network or in a related community networking initiative. It has a holistic focus on the use of ICT, taking staff beyond user training applications into areas of network management, e-learning, digitization, web design and XML that staff face on a day-to-day basis. Key areas covered include: PC installation and maintenance managing a network and coping with the security issues of internet connection understanding and supporting lifelong learning digitization of local materials managing websites and intranets: site design, metadata, XML building local community portals implementing e-government social inclusion and service extension: assistive technologies service issues: copyright, access user and staff training. Readership: This book will de-mystify this new area of development for all library and information staff working in, or setting up, a PC-based digital learning centre in information service settings within public libraries, community networking centres, and school and academic libraries.

Deliver on your digital transformation by learning from the insights and experiences from organizations adapting their approaches to life in the digital world. Business leaders, industry strategists, academics, and policy makers are all scrambling to make sense of digital transformation, and to define strategies for success in our increasingly digital economy. This book provides today's leaders, managers, and practitioners with the tools for understanding, leading, and delivering in the digital age. »What I see here is an excellent survey of the best thinking on Digital Transformation. It's a book I wish I had written.« Brad Power, Process Innovator »A clear and crisply written guide for any manager considering delivering digital transformation who would like a digestible introduction to key technology trends, organisational and social impact as well as a glimpse of the future.« Petrina Steele, Equinix »A thoroughly enjoyable read. A great synthesis of many different sources that I'm sure will be an invaluable guide for managers.« Richard Sargeant, faculty.ai

The contemporary world is characterized by the massive use of digital communication platforms and services that allow people to stay in touch with each other and their organizations. On the other hand, it is also a world with great challenges in terms of crisis, disaster, and emergency situations of various kinds. Thus, it is crucial to understand the role of digital platforms/services in the context of crisis, disaster, and emergency situations. Digital Services in Crisis, Disaster, and Emergency Situations presents recent studies on crisis, disaster, and emergency situations in which digital technologies are considered as a key mediator. Featuring multi- and interdisciplinary research findings, this comprehensive reference work highlights the relevance of society’s digitization and its usefulness and contribution to the different phases and types of risk scenarios. Thus, the book investigates the design of digital services that are specifically developed for use in crisis situations and examines services such as online social networks that can be used for communication purposes in emergency events. Highlighting themes that include crisis management communication, risk monitoring, digital crisis intervention, and smartphone applications, this book is of particular use to governments, institutions, corporations, and professionals who deal with crisis, disaster, and emergency scenarios, as well as researchers, academicians, and students working in fields such as communications, multimedia, sociology, political science, and engineering.

Now that we’re moving from a product economy to a digital service economy, software is becoming critical for navigating our everyday lives. The quality of your service depends on how well it helps customers accomplish goals and satisfy needs. Service quality is not about designing capabilities, but about making—and keeping—promises to customers. To help you improve customer satisfaction and create positive brand experiences, this pragmatic book introduces a transdisciplinary approach to digital service delivery. Designing a resilient service today requires a unified effort across front-office and back-office functions and technical and business perspectives. You’ll learn how make IT a full partner in the ongoing conversations you have with your customers. Take a unique customer-centered approach to the entire service delivery lifecycle Apply this perspective across development, operations, QA, design, project management, and marketing Implement a specific quality assurance methodology that unifies those disciplines Use the methodology to achieve true resilience, not just stability

This book provides practical guidance for delivering and sustaining value and impact from digital content. Our digital presence has the power to change lives and life opportunities. We must understand digital values to consider how organisational presence within digital cultures can create change. Impact assessment is the tool to foster understanding of how strategic decisions about digital resources may be fostering change within our communities. Delivering Impact with Digital Resources focuses on introducing both a mechanism and a way to thinking about strategies and evidence of benefits that extend to impact. Such that, the existence of a digital resource shows measurable outcomes that demonstrate a change in the life or life opportunities of the community. The book proposes an updated Balanced Value Impact Model (BVIM) to enable each memory organization to convincingly argue they are an efficient and effective operation, working in innovative modes with digital resources for the positive social and economic benefit of their communities. Coverage includes: · a guide to using the Balanced Value Impact Model and a wide range of data gathering and evidence based methods · exploration of strategy in the context of digital ecosystems, an attention economy and cultural economics · working with communities and stakeholders to deliver on promises implicit in digital resources/activities · major case studies about Europeana, the Wellcome Trust and the National Gallery of Denmark, amongst others · an exploration of the difference between the attitudes expressed by groups within digital cultures versus the actual behaviours they exhibit using impact exemplars from many sectors and geographies to show how they are explored and applied. Readership: This book will be especially useful for those managing digital presences in libraries, archives, galleries and museums including MA and PhD students studying subjects such as librarianship, information science, museums studies, archival studies, publishing, cultural studies and media studies. Companion website https://www.bvimodel.org/ featuring additional content, BVI model implementations, adaptions and templates and much more.