GREGORY LEE: Poor digitalisation is worse than none at all

The digital era has stepped into what can probably be termed third gear, with extensive transformation of processes, industries and economies but also with much room for expansion.

At their best, the third and fourth industrial revolutions have achieved profound good; for example, by improving access to economic and social opportunities through platforms such as e-commerce and digital government, reducing environmental impacts in areas such as paper use, creating better safety in mining, expanded access to information and insight, and so on.

At their worst, they have inflicted calamitous harm in areas such as mental health (thank you, social media), data and financial safety due to cyber threats, social fabric (when did a nice date become a Netflix doomscroll?) and so on. 

One aspect of digitalisation that is not garnering enough attention is enacted but poorly conceived or unfinished systems, which, after decades of initiatives, have started to slosh around us like swill. There are so many instances of such systems. Think about the number of times you have been initially wowed by the digitalisation of something only to run into frustration with it for any number of reasons.

A web-based digital form instead of a physical one — hallelujah — but they’ve merely copied across the original form with no thought to how digitalisation creates opportunities to improve the process, so they are asking you for unnecessary or duplicate information. How design mistakes such as missing options actually lock you out of options. How digital elements of a system do not integrate with other parts of the process. 

To concretise these thoughts, one recent example we experienced was in the familiar murk-zone of e-government — in this case trying to help someone register for income tax. The person is a permanent resident. The first option in the efiling registration system asks “Are you a South African citizen?”

Permanent residents are not citizens, so clicking no prompts the entry of a passport number. Clicking next starts you on an irrevocable data capture path with no back button to undo (heat starts to gather under collar). Subsequent calls to the contact centre establish that, in fact permanent residents should register as citizens (sweat running down back from gathering neck-heat).

Redoing the process with the ID number creates contrasting records that cannot be reconciled. Contact centre advises that a branch visit is now unavoidable (collar begins to smoulder). It turns out that the digital booking system for branches only works for already registered taxpayers, forcing new registrants to queue for three hours to get a booking (collar ignites in spectacular tower of flame). I’m surprised anyone registers under these circumstances.

A pervasive madness 

If we think this sort of madness is limited to e-government, think again. The private sector is also frequently guilty of poor digitalisation. I have lost count of the number of times FNB has exasperated me, from the forex system that does not offer all necessary balance of payment codes, to the woeful systems behind opening a new business bank account.

Most recently, we were tested with an attempt to open youth bank accounts for my minor sons. Initial filling in of web forms and document uploads achieved accounts that were open but frozen. Know your customer (KYC) requests ensued, with PDF forms to fill in per child with the same information as the original web form (left eye begins to twitch).

Submitting had no impact and led to no communication (left foot shaking). On the phone the contact centre asks for different versions of the same PDFs to be completed and the same documents as before to be sent (whole left side in spasm — is this what a stroke feels like?). 

The primary problem with bad digital digitalisation is that it often becomes The System, a rigid moat of algorithmic bureaucracy that cannot be breached or deviated from. Common sense enacted by well-trained service agents becomes impossible, disabled because The System does not allow for it. A form of dual rigor mortis sets in between jointly frustrated users and service agents, both crushed under the jackboot of The System. 

In a perfect world the issue is solved by double-loop learning systems that should lead to The System being continuously improved for identified weaknesses. However, it is all too common that this is not properly designed into workflows and organisational roles, or that there is no budget for improvements.

Alternatively, organisations should restore the ability of customer service agents to mitigate system inefficiencies. The problem with the latter solution is that The System is partly inflexible to cut out malfeasance such as the bypassing of proper protocols and checks, which is all too common in our fraud-loving economy.

Change management 

Therefore, the key issue is that executives cannot commission and budget digital systems with a view that the first version will be perfect and able to be handed over on a purely turnkey basis. They must allow for change management not only in the roles of service agents but also in the core organisational design, to force and reward good, old-fashioned, Japanese-style continuous improvement processes that — with proper ongoing funding — feed back into regular system improvements.

Only then will the true promise of digitalisation, namely that we can really be freed from the mundanities of life to play more golf, be realised. 

• Lee is associate professor of digital business at Wits Business School. He is the co-author and editor of many books on the digital economy.