By: Angelica Reyes
Technology and digital workplace solutions have become essential to not only seamlessly connect employees to each other, but also to the resources and information they need to work more efficiently. Enabling a digital-forward workplace through process automation empowers municipalities to improve key business processes, leverage data and analytics to gain insights into growth opportunities and become more agile to support changing work environments.
The Township of King redefined work by automating and digitizing their core processes to accelerate service delivery to its citizens and enable public services innovation.

Centralizing content across departments

The Township of King, located in York Region within Ontario’s Greater Toronto Area needed to digitize their paper-based records and create a centralized digital repository to drive better information mobility, inter-departmental collaboration and efficiency. To achieve this goal, the Township worked in close partnership with Ricoh and implemented enterprise content management (ECM) to seamlessly capture, manage and store data in one centralized location.
Aside from enabling real-time and easy access to information whenever the employees needed it the most, it also allowed the Township to break down department silos by transitioning off individual and department network drives – ultimately helping to strengthen the municipality’s information governance program.

Next-level digital transformation – electronic forms and process automation

Having reaped the benefits of digitizing, organizing and providing structure for their stored information, the Township took their digital transformation to the next level by integrating ECM with business process automation and electronic forms to automate key business processes, maximize efficiency and accelerate service delivery to its citizens.
Replacing paper forms with electronic forms allowed the Township to make more public services available online through a recently launched website where constituents can easily access applications, permit forms and other essential services with an integrated payment system for added convenience.
Business process automation makes it possible for both in-office and remote employees to efficiently process forms and expedite service delivery as reviews and approvals are automated, avoiding bottlenecks and eliminating dependence on manual routing. Importantly, business process automation enables access to critical insights and process reporting analytics that creates opportunities for continuous process improvement and help inform strategy for future growth.
“We are excited to see our public forms integrate with our repository, too.  Now, forms and information are automatically filed in the right spot, and our approval process moves to the digital realm — we’re able to track and start looking at the data analytics.” – Denny Timm, Manager of Legislative Services and Deputy Clerk

Building a digital-forward future

Embracing process automation and adopting digital workplace solutions like ECM and electronic forms has revolutionized the Township’s public service delivery, while creating better engagement and collaboration among its employees and constituents. Looking into the future, the Township has a clear vision to continuously drive innovation and create a modern experience for their employees and municipality.
Process automation offers municipalities many benefits, from enabling more cost-effective operations to strengthening data security, simplifying data access and management, and accelerating employee productivity. Importantly, it empowers municipalities to get more done, deliver greater value and eliminate manual and labour-intensive processes.
Like the Township of King, your municipality can reap the benefits of process automation and build an agile and sustainable business model for long-term growth – and Ricoh can help. Find out more about Ricoh’s solutions for municipal government today.

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