Automating digital documents to improve government efficiency and effectiveness
Inconsistent progress with digital transformation
Although government agencies continue to invest in digital transformation initiatives, progress is inconsistent. A recent Forrester US Federal Customer Experience Index Ranking revealed that federal agencies continue to lag the private sector in CX, and we can assume that smaller, state, and local government agencies with limited budgets and staff aren’t performing much better. The vast quantity of paperwork generated by government agencies — and the corresponding public burden it creates — makes digital transformation much more critical and difficult to achieve. According to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, in 2022, the American public spent 10.5 billion hours on government paperwork.
Certain government lines of business produce large quantities of documentation. Many mission support functions, such as procurement, grants management, and finance, produce significant amounts of documents — many legal in nature — that must be managed carefully to ensure effective stewardship of taxpayer dollars. These lines of business also tend to be areas that can benefit the most from digital document automation at scale.
A recent McKinsey report indicated that mission support functions could realize up to 60 to 80 percent of task automation, creating a potential for net long-term savings. Automating digital document workflows can go a long way toward improving citizen and employee satisfaction. That’s where Adobe Document Cloud comes in.
The Federal Aviation Administration is leading the way
The federal government awards hundreds of billions of dollars annually on grants, many of them going to state and local government recipients. With extensive paperwork required across the grants management lifecycle — from pre-award to post-award — manual and paper-based form processes are not viable for long-term success. Common document challenges include capturing signatures effectively, ensuring that documents are secure, and automatically generating standard documents from templates.
Adobe has been working with government customers for many years on their document challenges. A growing area of innovation in Adobe Document Cloud is Adobe Acrobat Services, a suite of APIs designed to help organizations build new document solutions that can integrate with existing technology infrastructures. These plug-and-play, document-centric APIs can readily connect to government systems of record, like federal grants systems.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been a leader in the federal grants management space, with $25 billion invested in various aviation programs through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The FAA has also invested in improving the grant process by leveraging Adobe Acrobat for PDF editing, Adobe Acrobat Sign for electronic signatures, and Adobe Document Generation API to automate grant document creation from templates.
Get started today with Adobe Document Cloud
Adobe continues to develop innovative solutions that can help government with automation and digital document workflows. To learn more, explore Adobe Document Cloud for government.