.JPG)
By Cleiton Jorge, Metasix Operations Director
The need to move forward with the digitalization of municipalities still faces many challenges and a great deal of discouragement on the part of public officials. There is almost no margin for investments, the current structure is insufficient, there is a lack of people, there is a lack of IT culture, there is no critical mass for the development of sophisticated projects.
While in São Paulo or Porto Alegre the technicians discuss "smart cities", in small and medium-sized cities, many times the skepticism about new technologies is overpowered. However, despite this, fortunately, an environment so favorable to the implementation of digital services for municipalities of all sizes has never been found in Brazil.
The first evidence of this is in the already quite widespread dissemination of broadband access by the citizen, a resource that today reaches more than 50% of people, according to IBGE data, in a proportion that reaches over 80% of homes in municipalities with metropolis (with 70 thousand inhabitants or more).
And this without mentioning the more than 230 million smartphones - practically 1 per inhabitant - according to FGV estimates - and another 166 million desktops, notebooks and tablets in the hands of the Brazilian user.
It is this gigantic and democratic park of access, storage, interaction and processing devices that, even if constituted in the private property of the citizen, can - and needs - be converted into a service structure, without the city halls having to go into debt to give the necessary step towards the third platform.
In this regard, let us draw a parallel between an urban prefecture and a small network of fast food who, until recently, worked exclusively with offline sales in physical stores and received orders via telephone, writing them down on a pad of paper and passing them on to the kitchen. The example, of course, is not meant to be exhaustive, as the range of services provided by a municipal administration is incomparably larger and more complex.
But it serves to point out that, with extremely modest technical resources (as is the reality of many city halls), the small food trade has discovered viable and very fast ways to move on to digital transformation without having to build a large backing of information technology. What's more, without having to wait for the implementation of large analytical structures, or even the formation of specialized internal staff in the operationalization of new IT devices.
It was enough for an external provider (or several) to start offering a delivery application - easy to use and easy to assimilate to the business - so that this small business could, in a surprisingly fast bid, adhere to an e-commerce model highly attuned to the wishes of the client.
And with just a little more effort (minimal consultancy or the availability of a more skilled employee in relation to mobile platforms), this same merchant can now start the practice of an omni-channel model, taking into the hands of the attendants a low-cost smartphone or tablet application, in which the menu application is connected to a mini ERP downloaded free from the WEB, which is capable, in turn, of organizing the physical and virtual environments of the business as a single and cohesive operation .
Importing the retail pattern to the municipalities
But how to import this pattern of digitizing leap into the sphere of the public sector? And why does a small city government seem to have more difficulty with its digital transformation than a small hamburger chain?
If in the small business the decision-making process is fast, in the public sector the obstacle is greater due to three factors combined: 1: the excess of formalism, which imposes a stage-oriented and extremely controlled vision of any innovation in the processes; 2: the bureaucratic component, intrinsic to all management models in the same sphere and, 3: the low resilience of managers (in general, exchanged in periods almost always less than five years), an aspect that is associated with a short view , and never long term.
Understand these three factors and have the courage to take them down, but without excessive risk of rupture with the minimum and responsible formality and with the real functionality of the management and service provision processes. This is the first requirement to be considered by the public manager when deciding to go for digital processes.
Secondly, it is necessary to choose processes in which the digital model is already feasible based on the current IT structures, just to optimize its use.
In these definition movements, looking at what is already done in other cities will already help the manager in a safe direction.
If, for example, the municipality in question already exploits - or has the potential to explore - paid vehicle parking in public places, just look at what already happens in São Paulo and in several small and medium-sized cities in the world, where an application for Charging for license plate registration automates both the collection and management processes for this fee.
If the municipality wants to offer citizens information in general, for example, about their health or leisure equipment; as well as tax information, places and data of general interest, such as vacancies in daycare centers or schools, vaccination sites and garbage collection schedules, why not study a structure of chatbots specialized in these different aspects of management?
Chatbots, as we know, are interaction structures that mimic human conduct and that enable us to respond with great objectivity to a relatively wide universe of questions on a given subject.
With few back-up resources and a minimum of analytical structure (an item that has already become mandatory in any city with a few tens of thousands of residents), a chatbot application can admirably expand the quality of service for most of the demands, we can quote from certificates, passing through the municipality's janitorial office, even to active notifications of vaccination campaigns.
In combination with the conventional call center attendant, the chatbot has the proven virtue of promoting the quality of the user experience while maximizing the efficiency of service by people, and at a very low cost, as you only use the service human when the chatbot fails to answer.
In addition, for city halls that do not yet have a good critical mass of information for possible analytical processes, the chatbot's ongoing work becomes an important source of data on the conformation and propensities of the citizen who uses the services.
What creates a sensational treasure trove of data for continuous engagement strategies and constant improvement of the user's journey.
City halls with few resources to maintain many callcenter positions can greatly optimize their service costs without forcing the citizen to go to a physical location to face useless and, ultimately, costly queues.
And the good news is that there are already some requirements on the market that provide for the progressive cheapening of chatbots. Among these are the popularization of analytical platforms, now available at highly affordable costs. There is also the feasibility of using chatbots in association with social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, which can be a good way out for cities that do not have a solid web portal structure to support service interactions.
In addition to all this, in some bot factories there is an impressive range of chatbot applications already ready to work for cities of all sizes from elastic investments, adapted to the current scarcity of budgets.
While in São Paulo or Porto Alegre the technicians discuss "smart cities", in small and medium-sized cities, many times the skepticism about new technologies is overpowered. However, despite this, fortunately, an environment so favorable to the implementation of digital services for municipalities of all sizes has never been found in Brazil.
The first evidence of this is in the already quite widespread dissemination of broadband access by the citizen, a resource that today reaches more than 50% of people, according to IBGE data, in a proportion that reaches over 80% of homes in municipalities with metropolis (with 70 thousand inhabitants or more).
And this without mentioning the more than 230 million smartphones - practically 1 per inhabitant - according to FGV estimates - and another 166 million desktops, notebooks and tablets in the hands of the Brazilian user.
It is this gigantic and democratic park of access, storage, interaction and processing devices that, even if constituted in the private property of the citizen, can - and needs - be converted into a service structure, without the city halls having to go into debt to give the necessary step towards the third platform.
In this regard, let us draw a parallel between an urban prefecture and a small network of fast food who, until recently, worked exclusively with offline sales in physical stores and received orders via telephone, writing them down on a pad of paper and passing them on to the kitchen. The example, of course, is not meant to be exhaustive, as the range of services provided by a municipal administration is incomparably larger and more complex.
But it serves to point out that, with extremely modest technical resources (as is the reality of many city halls), the small food trade has discovered viable and very fast ways to move on to digital transformation without having to build a large backing of information technology. What's more, without having to wait for the implementation of large analytical structures, or even the formation of specialized internal staff in the operationalization of new IT devices.
It was enough for an external provider (or several) to start offering a delivery application - easy to use and easy to assimilate to the business - so that this small business could, in a surprisingly fast bid, adhere to an e-commerce model highly attuned to the wishes of the client.
And with just a little more effort (minimal consultancy or the availability of a more skilled employee in relation to mobile platforms), this same merchant can now start the practice of an omni-channel model, taking into the hands of the attendants a low-cost smartphone or tablet application, in which the menu application is connected to a mini ERP downloaded free from the WEB, which is capable, in turn, of organizing the physical and virtual environments of the business as a single and cohesive operation .
Importing the retail pattern to the municipalities
But how to import this pattern of digitizing leap into the sphere of the public sector? And why does a small city government seem to have more difficulty with its digital transformation than a small hamburger chain?
If in the small business the decision-making process is fast, in the public sector the obstacle is greater due to three factors combined: 1: the excess of formalism, which imposes a stage-oriented and extremely controlled vision of any innovation in the processes; 2: the bureaucratic component, intrinsic to all management models in the same sphere and, 3: the low resilience of managers (in general, exchanged in periods almost always less than five years), an aspect that is associated with a short view , and never long term.
Understand these three factors and have the courage to take them down, but without excessive risk of rupture with the minimum and responsible formality and with the real functionality of the management and service provision processes. This is the first requirement to be considered by the public manager when deciding to go for digital processes.
Secondly, it is necessary to choose processes in which the digital model is already feasible based on the current IT structures, just to optimize its use.
In these definition movements, looking at what is already done in other cities will already help the manager in a safe direction.
If, for example, the municipality in question already exploits - or has the potential to explore - paid vehicle parking in public places, just look at what already happens in São Paulo and in several small and medium-sized cities in the world, where an application for Charging for license plate registration automates both the collection and management processes for this fee.
If the municipality wants to offer citizens information in general, for example, about their health or leisure equipment; as well as tax information, places and data of general interest, such as vacancies in daycare centers or schools, vaccination sites and garbage collection schedules, why not study a structure of chatbots specialized in these different aspects of management?
Chatbots, as we know, are interaction structures that mimic human conduct and that enable us to respond with great objectivity to a relatively wide universe of questions on a given subject.
With few back-up resources and a minimum of analytical structure (an item that has already become mandatory in any city with a few tens of thousands of residents), a chatbot application can admirably expand the quality of service for most of the demands, we can quote from certificates, passing through the municipality's janitorial office, even to active notifications of vaccination campaigns.
In combination with the conventional call center attendant, the chatbot has the proven virtue of promoting the quality of the user experience while maximizing the efficiency of service by people, and at a very low cost, as you only use the service human when the chatbot fails to answer.
In addition, for city halls that do not yet have a good critical mass of information for possible analytical processes, the chatbot's ongoing work becomes an important source of data on the conformation and propensities of the citizen who uses the services.
What creates a sensational treasure trove of data for continuous engagement strategies and constant improvement of the user's journey.
City halls with few resources to maintain many callcenter positions can greatly optimize their service costs without forcing the citizen to go to a physical location to face useless and, ultimately, costly queues.
And the good news is that there are already some requirements on the market that provide for the progressive cheapening of chatbots. Among these are the popularization of analytical platforms, now available at highly affordable costs. There is also the feasibility of using chatbots in association with social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, which can be a good way out for cities that do not have a solid web portal structure to support service interactions.
In addition to all this, in some bot factories there is an impressive range of chatbot applications already ready to work for cities of all sizes from elastic investments, adapted to the current scarcity of budgets.
EN 
PT 
