Strategic Spending on the Digital Transformation of Social Service Delivery in Ontario

The Sector Inc’s extensive research study on the role of global consulting firms in government digital transformation in Ontario:

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The Undefined Role of the Ontario Public Service

1.1 Assumption 1: The Speed of Digital

1.2 Assumption 2: Consulting Firms Are the Required Intermediary

1.3 Hypothesis

1.4 The Approach: What if “The Big Four” were Retained?

1.5 The Problem Statement: The Third Sector Can’t Afford the Big Four

2. Context Behind the Hypothesis: Government Spending (A Market Analysis)

2.1 Government Spending on Transfer Payments: The Market for Social Services

2.2 Segmenting the Third Sector’s Transfer Payments

2.3 Government Expenditure on Consulting Services (The Market For…)

2.3.1 Government Buying “Technical” & Consulting Firms Selling “Technical”?

2.3.2 Costly Consultants Permanent Employees Could Do for Less

2.4 The Market for Consulting Service to the Third Sector

3. Literature Review: Existing Literature from All Three Sectors

3.1 Conducting the Literature Review

3.2 Broader-Public-Sector Literature on Government Transformation

3.2.1 The Creation of Streamlined Client Pathways

3.2.1.1 Government Literature on Streamlined Pathways

3.2.1.2 Third Sector Literature on Streamlined Pathways

3.2.1 Proven Outcomes & Tracked Evidence (Finance First)

3.2.2 Inter-Governmental Integration: Integration Before Digitization

3.2.3 Inter-Sectoral Integration: The Digital Requirement

3.3. The Big Four Literature on Digital Transformation of Government

3.3.1 The Preeminent Role of Digital in Government Transformation

3.3.1.1 A Tone of Urgency, Competition, & Optimism

3.3.3 Better Delivery Through Stronger Data

3.3.4 Self-Serve Models

3.4 Literature on the Third-Sector’s Skill Gap

3.4.1 The Sector’s Digital Skills Gap

3.4.2 A Lack of Internal Digital Capabilities

4. Research Methodology: An “Intrinsic” Case Study

4.1 Overall Approach: The Critical Success Factors to the Consulting Engagement

4.1.1 Research Questions: Breaking the Problem into Factors to Build Strategy

4.1.2 The Structure of the Research

4.1.3 Research Presentation Format

4.2 Research Plan 1: Factors For & Against, Digital Transformation; Third Sector Perspective

4.2.1 Description, Rationale and Expectations

4.3.1.1 The Survey (Questionnaire)

4.3.1.2 Semi-structured Interviews

4.3.2 Critique

4.3.2.1 The Survey (Questionnaire): The Sample Bias, Timing, and Reliability

4.3.2.2 Semi-Structured Interviews

4.3.3 Issues Encountered: The Good and the Bad

4.3.3.1 The Survey (Questionnaire)

4.3.3.2 Semi-Structured Interviews

4.3.4 Analyzing the Results

4.3.4.1 The Survey (Questionnaire)

4.3.4.2 Semi-structured Interviews

4.4 Research Plan 2: Providing Capacity Building Services; The Big Four’s Perspective

4.1.1 Description, Rationale, and Expectations

4.4.1.1 Semi Structured Interviews

4.4.1.2 Data-mining for Verification and Fact Checking

4.4.2 Critique

4.4.2.1 Semi-Structured Interviews

4.4.2.2 Data Mining for Verification & Fact-Checking

4.4.3. Issues Encountered

4.4.3.1 Semi-Structured Interviews

4.4.4 Analyzing the Results

5. Findings

5.1 Analysis of Findings

5.1.1 Third Sector Perspective: Analyzing Survey Results and Interview Responses

5.1.2 Market Factors which Support Digital Transformation of Third-Sector Organizations

5.1.3 The Big Four’s Perspective: Analyzing Survey Results and Interview Responses

5.2 Learning Points Toward Strategic Government Spending

6. Proposed Strategic Government Spending

6.1 Diverting Funding from Program & Policy Design to Service Delivery

6.1.2 Provincial Transfer Payments to Create Scale and Efficiency

6.1.2.1 Creating Scale Through Operations Design

6.1.2.2 Creating Third Sector Scale Through Consolidation

6.1.2.3 Issuing Tenders for Management Consulting Services Toward Digital Transformation

7. Concluding Remarks

7.1 Dissertation Summary

7.2 Critique and Limitations

7.2.1 Lack of Technical Rigor

7.2.2 Lack of Formal Financial Analysis

7.3 Further Research

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