Greater efficiency through digitalization—a production platform for IMC?

In the future, IMC (IMC) will become a strategic tool for municipalities to leverage synergies, use resources responsibly, and counteract increasing specialization and shortages in the skilled labor market. Depending on the state, the “instrument of IMC” is already being used to varying degrees: “Coordinating IMCs” work on solutions to common problems, while “Executive IMCs ” provide services for customers or internally.

Some municipalities shy away from cooperation, as IMCs require a great deal of effort to be contractually defined, processes developed, and technically implemented. To date, there is no structural or technical support for cooperation at the municipal level. IMC processes are designed and implemented individually in each case. Despite great efforts, previous IMC projects have often failed due to spatial limitations, different production processes, and other inflexible framework conditions (e.g., traditional means of communication and different IT workplace equipment).

Digitalization as an enabler of efficient inter-municipal cooperation

The digital transformation of municipal administrations is often the subject of coordinated inter-municipal cooperation: municipalities work together to examine how certain processes, whether internal (e.g., procurement) or customer-oriented (e.g., OZG services), can be digitalized. However, it is less common to consider how digitalization can already be an enabler of inter-municipal cooperation today – simply by digitalizing cooperation structures:

• Virtual project rooms for coordinating inter-municipal cooperation instead of a ritualized mode of regular physical meetings.
• Digital “service desks” enable flexible, location-independent access to internal services bundled by executive IMC (e.g., procurement, human resources, IT).
• Digital technology enables customers to digitally access services offered jointly by IMC.

How about if, regardless of the content of specific IMC projects, a powerful technical infrastructure made all forms of IMC immediately operational? The idea of a content-agnostic production platform could become a booster for the goals pursued by IMC:

• All municipalities can enable their customers to access the jointly offered services digitally “in one fell swoop.”
• Internal services are “accessible” to all employees regardless of the actual location of the request (e.g., home office) and the provision of services (e.g., physical workplace in a participating municipality).
• Coordinating IMC gains agile, open project structures and overcomes spatial boundaries.

Location independence through digitalization increases flexibility for everyone involved: employees, customers, and employers. Flexible working models allow employees to better balance their professional and private lives. Customers can look forward to not only easier, digital access to municipal services, but also extended service hours. The administration as an employer becomes more attractive, can make better use of resources, and, as part of a network, can expand its search radius for specialized professionals. In summary, it can be said that such a project platform would make the “overall IMC concept” more flexible, faster, and more efficient.

Conceptual considerations

In order for the effects described above to actually occur, various aspects must be taken into account at the conceptual level. First and foremost, the aim here is to replace today's rigid structure of silos (departments, divisions, etc.) with an “inter-municipal counterpart” and to actually realize or ‘live’ the concept of “boundlessness.” What appears to be primarily a cultural challenge has a solid technical background. Communication and collaboration solutions based on permanent presence (so-called virtual office solutions) enable a “user experience” that is largely comparable to collaboration in a physical office.

Furthermore, it is important for the agility of the “IMC system” that the creation of collaboration structures (e.g., a new project area) is possible with low barriers to entry in order to also create informal collaboration opportunities. However, this should be done without abandoning the “learned” organizational structure.

In order to design the production platform not as an “additional channel” but as a central interaction platform, it needs to be enriched with shared applications with the aim of consolidating the majority of the applications used on a daily basis on the platform and thus positioning it as the “hub” of daily work. In the long term, this could lead to the creation of a kind of “unified workplace” for an IMC, which on the one hand would further increase the flexibility of resource allocation between the participating municipalities, and on the other hand would also enable significant advantages through the bundled purchase of shared software products.

Challenges on the path to an inter-municipal production platform

Although the production platform described above appears to be suitable for addressing important future challenges facing public administration, the path to such a platform is not easy. A fundamental dilemma—not only in setting up such a platform, but in digital transformation as a whole—is that the future benefits of digitization projects (rationalization of task fulfillment, increased resource efficiency, and much more) are offset by investments for which the municipalities currently have very little leeway. So how do we deal with the fact that today's financial situation is preventing precisely those measures that could improve the financial situation in the future? At the municipal level, too, more flexible approaches to debt must be considered when it comes to making the necessary investments.

Despite EfA services, the variety of specialist applications to be integrated is enormous given the federal and municipal peculiarities. In addition, there are numerous variants of products in the area of document management/e-files and much more. Central standards for various cross-cutting issues (payment, BundID, signature) are provided by FITKO. An IMC production platform will therefore have to feature highly flexible interfaces for the integration of the various specialist and process applications of public administration.

In order to leverage the full potential of IMC, corresponding cooperation is not always limited to closely neighboring municipalities—sometimes there are comparable constellations of characteristics or interests that make cooperation with other municipalities appear sensible. One example would be the existence of a nature reserve in the municipality's district—in this case, an IMC with other municipalities that employ a specialist in nature conservation would be helpful. The more municipalities work on such a production platform, the greater the opportunities for thematic cooperation between municipalities. Such network effects only develop their momentum after a critical mass has been reached, which raises the question of funding opportunities for the initial establishment of this critical mass.

Conclusion

The role of inter-municipal cooperation in overcoming future challenges is largely undisputed. In addition to the nationwide back offices and EfA services brought into play by the Normative Control Council (German NKR), IMC services are another important component in increasing efficiency at the municipal level. Digitalization can already support the speed, efficiency, and flexibility of IMC. However, for this to succeed, a structural approach is required that takes into account the entirety of the tasks of a group of municipalities, prioritizes and evaluates them, and then implements them step by step on a uniform technical platform, developing this into a uniform working environment in the future.

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With our digital administration center based on ivCAMPUS, many of the potentials described can be leveraged. We look forward to an exchange in which we can discuss the specific implementation options in your municipality without obligation.

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