Service processes and digital transformation in public organizations: An enterprise architecture perspective

Digital transformation plays a critical role in reshaping public organizations. Understanding the impact of this transformation on service processes becomes critical for effective governance and strategy in public organizations. The paper examines the effects of digital transformation on the service processes of public organizations from the enterprise architecture (EA) perspective and aims to reveal the main challenges and success factors encountered in the transformation process. It was assumed that digital transformation in the public sector requires the transformation of institutional structures, service processes and culture together with technological renewal, and a qualitative analysis method was used in the research. For data collection, focus group interviews and semi-structured interviews were preferred. The raw data obtained from the interviews were subjected to content and theme-code analysis. In light of the findings obtained in the study, it was concluded that themes such as digital transformation prerequisites, business architecture, data architecture, technology architecture and application architecture play a critical role in the digital transformation process of public organizations. The effect of digital transformation in areas such as service processes, culture, data management, collaboration and transparency was examined in particular and the challenges and gains encountered in the processes were taken into consideration. Furthermore, policy recommendations were developed in terms of public service processes for digital transformation and a high-level digital transformation model proposal was presented in the research. These policy and model recommendations aim to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of public institutions in their digital transformation processes; the research provides guidance on the innovations that the digital transformation process bring to the public organizations and their service processes. Keywords: Public Organizations, Service Processes, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Architecture, Digital Transformation Planning Model