1.  The benefits of the digital revolution;
 Use of smart and mobile technologies;
 The pervasiveness of digital media;
 Information overload;
 Information appearing to be available anywhere
and at anytime;
Benefits of optimising business processes by
applying technology, and
Getting more out of ICT expenditure.
INFORMATION SESSION SUMMARY
IRIS CONSULTING GROUP
Phone 08 9200 6200 | Email info@irisconsulting.net.au | www.irisconsulting.net.au
©IRIS Consulting Group Pty Ltd
21st Century Organisations
FOCUSING ON THE DIGITAL CONTINUUM
 Is your organisation operating as a 21st Century
organisation, i.e. where does it fit on the Digital
Continuum?
 What digital services have you provided to your
internal and external customers that included
service provided via mobile applications?
 Is technology helping your organisation to optimise
its business processes?
 What specific things is your organisation able to do
better as a result of its ICT expenditure in the
past?
On the whole Government
Organisations do not appear to readily
share and communicate in the area of
information management and
business efficiency.
Many people indicated that their
organisations were unwilling to be the first
organisation to test the use of digital
documents, even though the Electronic
Transactions Act has been in place for 15
years at the Commonwealth level and for 3
years at the WA state level.
Event held 26 March 2014
Our findings on the unnecessary costs incurred by not having fully digital services or operations:
 Postage costs for Mailing ‘born digital documents’
 Re-digitisation of ‘born digital documents’
 Increasing costs for physical document storage in the digital age
 Failure to achieve the desired business benefit from ICT Expenditure
IRIS identified the following major ’Road Blocks’ preventing organisations taking advantage of the digital revolution
and getting benefit from their ICT expenditure as follows:
1. Current business processes hampered by the continued use of physical documents and the inability of organisations
to use born digital documents and digital signatures or no signatures. This situation leads to other compounding
issues as outlined in points 2, 3, 4 and 5.
2. Emailing documents already sent physically leading to the storage of multiple versions in multiple places.
3. Physical document storage.
4. Re-Digitising born digital documents.
5. Inefficient business processes which are dependent on physical documents and unnecessary physical interaction.
6. Failure to use agreed information management standards to facilitate the efficient upgrade, merging and migration
of systems holding digital documents.
Some Executives and Senior Managers operate under the misconception that their organisations are fully digital and
therefore – they are 21st
Century Organisations. IRIS has experienced this situation (in some organisations) where
senior staff use digital operations personally and they often assume that if something looks to be fully digital then it
must be. However IRIS’s research shows that not to be the case.

2. Many people also indicated that it was difficult to
get their Lawyers to provide clear unambiguous,
practical and useful advice with regards to the use
of the Electronic Transaction Acts and the use of
digital evidence.
Page 2
A few organisations said that they already have full
digital operations and business processes. We
suggested that they should apply a simple test to
confirm their belief. As stated above one of the
causes of the Road Blocks (for which IRIS has
gathered supporting evidence) is that Executives
and Senior Managers may believe they have full
digital operations when evidence reveals they do
not.
 Ensure you have an Information Governance Policy and Framework – establish owners for all information assets
and assign responsibilities for those assets.
 Adopt and apply information management standards to all information assets as they are developed and created.
If they are already created then you will need to revisit them and apply
the standards retrospectively.
 Apply the WA Electronic Transactions Act 2011 and immediately cease
sending any physical documentation as the default position for your
organisation. Make the sending of physical documentation the exception
rather than the rule. This approach requires careful planning and
coordination.
 Ensure that all documents are captured into Electronic Document and
Records Management Systems and Line of Business Systems with the
required evidentiary and recordkeeping capabilities. When printed these will carry a water mark which makes it
clear to everyone internal to the organisation that this is a ‘duplicate’ document. The original document is the
digital document captured into the system.
The ‘Road Blocks’ can be alleviated by developing a Strategic Information Plan which will:
 Deliver an agreed, consistent, and standardised approach to the management of core information assets.
 Enable the optimisation of information assets and the processes and systems that utilise and/or support those
assets to facilitate delivery of efficiency and productivity gains across the organisation.
 Inform future decisions that need to be made in relation to the procurement, development or upgrading of
information technologies.
 Ensure that business objectives are achieved efficiently and effectively.
 Ensure business continuity of day-to-day operations.
Some of the Local Government
Representatives suggested that it would
be impossible to get agreement on the
standards to be used. These standards
are required to facilitate the merging of
data and information which will be
required to develop a planned,
coordinated and systematised approach to
Amalgamations.
IRIS CONSULTING GROUP
Phone 08 9200 6200 | Email info@irisconsulting.net.au | www.irisconsulting.net.au
©IRIS Consulting Group Pty Ltd
FOCUSING ON THE DIGITAL CONTINUUM