KARACHI: On December 12, 2021, Dubai claimed to have become the world’s first government that had made all its internal operations as well as customer services 100% digital – the main objective of the Dubai Paperless Strategy launched in 2018.
It believed this would help it to establish itself as a leading digital capital.
“With the Dubai Paperless Strategy fully implemented, no employee or customer of the Dubai government will need to print any paper documents or transactions, unless they personally prefer to do so,” it said at the time.
But the work isn’t over. According to Dr Moza Suwaidan, Director of Strategy at Digital Dubai, the government is also working on an app that will provide businessmen with trade licenses online to open and operate a business in the city.
“We have developed an entire platform that caters to investor-needs and expectations, and provide them with a seamless, 100% digital experience through a platform called Invest in Dubai,” said Dr Moza Suwaidan.
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This will fit right into the city’s mandate of encouraging ease of business – whether that’s through its tax laws, economic free zones or resident visas.
According to His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, the next stage of the strategy will be marked by advanced strategies to create and enhance digital life in Dubai over the next five decades and “will enable and empower future governments to meet the expectations of the residents of a thriving smart city”.
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Meanwhile, speaking exclusively to Business Recorder, Dr Suwaidan said an example of the city’s paperless strategy that is already available is the DubaiNow app.
“DubaiNow was positioned to be the city services platform from which you can get more than 130 government services from one single mobile application.
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“It’s very much a seamless experience and you can get a number of services, whether it’s to renew your car registration, or participate in a charity events.”
There are many services offered through more than 70 government and private sector entities through this application.
“What we were targeting is to make sure services that you want on a day-to-day basis or more frequently used services are available through a 100% digital experience.”
During an in-depth conversation with Business Recorder, Dr Suwaidan said it was back in 2000 when Dubai first began providing services online via online and mobile platforms.
“Every certain number of years the bar would get raised to a different set of expectations and a more convenient way to serve customers.”
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Eventually, in 2017, while feedback was positive one complaint was that despite services being digital, customers were still asked to submit papers to process these services.
It wasn’t enough that a service was available online, “the entire process had to be paperless.”
Hence the paperless strategy was born.
What made it different from the previous effort was that it applied not only to customer-facing services but also the government’s internal operations, whether that was HR, finance or procurement – departments which until now were not the focus of digitisation.
The target was to achieve “100% paperless in our key operations of around 45 government entities.”
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“We looked at more than 1,800 services and more than 10,000 internal operations and we worked with government entities to look at ways to eliminate paper either by integration with other entities or digitisation of the entire process, which includes re-enigineering of those services and operations. Or we eliminated process altogether if they were not adding any value,” said Dr Suwaidan.
Another reason for the push was that research showed the Dubai government was using more than 360 million papers a year. This was an “eye opener” for many, and Dr Suwaidan reckons some 40,000 trees annually have been saved thanks to the city’s initiative.
That’s one reason to deem the strategy a success.
Another is the government is closing down many of its service centres because they are no longer required, unless its serving specific segments that might need extra assistance.
So how did Dubai manage it?
According to Dr Suwaidan, the government looked at three pillars: utilising existing investment in tech in the last 20 years and building on that to take services to another level of digitisation; legislation; and culture.
“You can have the best state-of art technology, but if your legislation doesn’t support your transformation, you will face a lot of challenges,” she said.
“There are a lot of laws that never get updated for the dynamic world we are living in, while some legislations ask for physical presence of customer to, for example, sign on asset transfers or complete a car registration. So we had to look at legislation and make sure it was in line with our direction towards paperless”.
The third pillar was culture within organisations: “We worked with entities to develop change management programmes for end users as well as to change the internal corporate culture and the way we think about services and operations.”
She said a key focus was to increase consumer trust in digital transformation.
“One of the reasons why a customer chooses to come to a government entity is he wants to have that sense of trusting the process that is actually being delivered and knowing the transaction has been developed and recorded. We are trying to improve trust in the digital platform through this strategy and its vision as well.”
Overall, she said it helps that Dubai is “a very agile government when it comes to adapting to change and taking on new challenges”
Advice for other institutions or governments
Dr Suwadain’s first piece of advice for others who want to replicate what Dubai has done is to develop a strategy and a goal.
“We had just one key performance indicator and there was nothing else. It was to achieve 100% paperless in government services and operations by December 12, 2021. A very specific target and a very specific date – having that articulated over and over in every meeting helped get everyone on the same page. So keep the goal simple.”
Secondly, she said to have a specific methodology: define what is meant by paper. Will you count books as paper? What about certificates and marketing material?
“Our answer was we wanted to eliminate paper that results in inefficiency within the government. We wanted to only get rid of paper where it actually really mattered and solved a pain point.”
Thirdly, she said to always have a tool to measure impact.
“We have models that tell us what will be the impact of what we do in terms of savings for the government, for customers and the environment. This model helps create a case for going forward with a strategy, and create momentum within teams.”
“You will be dealing with multiple stakeholders and you have to show them value of what you are doing all the time – this will help you get their support, and enable and empower you to achieve your vision”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022