Social services agencies are reassessing how best to deploy their people, what processes to change and where to invest in technology. Growing numbers are recognizing that emerging technologies, such as predictive modeling and intelligent automation, can free up their workforces to provide more personalized experiences.

1. MAKING THE
Taking human services from
the era of support to the
Era of Empowerment
PERSONAL
POSSIBLE

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EMERGING
AND CONVERGING:
Making the Personal Possible
moving towards the Era of Empowerment
Every day we see clear evidence of our world becoming more and more digital
and interconnected. We are living through a new and historic transformation
that touches every corner of commerce, industry, government and society.
Citizens now expect powerful digital capabilities from public services, while
governments expect their public services to fully exploit the efficiency and
productivity gains made possible by digital.
Due to the sheer scale and importance of human services, these agencies
experience the weight of digital expectations more acutely than many
other public services. For this reason, most agencies are already
transforming, enabling greater insights, efficiencies and innovations.
At the intersection of many initiatives is the need to build more
citizen-centric services, in place of the process-centric services
that evolved before the digital era. In short, agencies need
to design a new generation of human services and harness
digital tools to make the personal possible.

3. By 2025, Millennials—demanding intuitive, personalised, digital experiences across multiple
channels—will comprise 75 percent of the global workforce.1
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FIVE FORCES SHAPING THE
EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SERVICES
01 DIGITAL 02 CITIZENS 03 FINANCE 04 ECOSYSTEM 05 WORKFORCE

4. As digital transformation matures, agencies are becoming more
data-driven, while implementing a range of powerful emerging
technologies, including big data and advanced analytics; virtual
assistants/advisers; blockchain; robotic process automation;
artificial intelligence and omni-channel integration.
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01 DIGITAL
The platform economy, commissioning models and partnerships
are evolving fast. These allow government to play the role of
orchestrator rather than provider, so agencies will increasingly
need to create and participate in wider, more dynamic markets
and networks to provide the right service at the right time.
04 ECOSYSTEM
Demographics are changing. Average age is rising in many
countries, increasing pressure on employment, pensions,
health and human services. Meanwhile, service expectations
are increasingly shaped by digitally savvy Millennials (born
after 1979).
02 CITIZENS
Human interaction will remain fundamental to public services.
In fact, the role of face-to-face services is likely to become more
focused and valuable. Proactive, automated, virtualised and
AI-enabled service models will drive the bulk of services, while
the workforce will become more data-driven and provide more
specialized, targeted interventions that require human empathy,
judgment and innovation.
05 WORKFORCE
Public budgets will continue to be strained as agencies adapt to
change and disruptive forces. They will be expected to do even
more with even less – interventions need to have stronger,
longer-lasting outcomes, delivered faster and more efficiently.
03 FINANCE

5. MAKING THE
PERSONAL POSSIBLE:
From support to empowerment: three eras of human services
05
These five forces are already shifting agencies away from long-standing models – through a transitional,
hybrid phase – and on towards the foreseeable culmination of current trends.
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Era of Support
From the
Era of Enablement
Through the
Era of Empowerment
To the
citizens seek support from agencies;
agencies become digitalized but
remain process-centered, with
sub-optimal efficiency and little
integration with other agencies and
wider ecosystems.
citizens are enabled to access
services tailored to them; agencies
are using emerging technologies to
become more data-driven, proactive
and citizen-centric.
citizens are empowered with
broadly-integrated, adaptive and
personalised public services;
artificial intelligence and automation
deliver the bulk of services, while
predicative analytics triggers
proactive human interventions.

6. CONTINUOUS
LIFELONG EMPOWERMENT
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From a citizen perspective, the era of
empowerment should be a defined continuous,
personalised, adaptive, and intelligent interaction
through every key moment of need, allowing
them to be involved in key decisions, as well as
in the design of the services that they need.

7. Supported by
intelligent
processes
Secured by
digital trust
Enabled by
digital agility
Orchestrated by human
services as a platform
Delivered by
insight-driven
services
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How do human services agencies
move from support, through
enablement and on to empowerment?
There are five elements that underpin the journey.
Supporting, enabling and ultimately empowering citizens
depends on advancing each of these elements; building
personalised human services…

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Segment-based Personalised Adaptive
DELIVERED BY
INSIGHT-DRIVEN SERVICES
Trajectory: Toward adaptive, personalised human services tailored to real-time citizen needs and circumstances.
Journey: Agencies become more data-driven and integrate analytics into business operations, by embedding relevant
insights into end-to-end business processes.
ERA OF SUPPORT ERA OF ENABLEMENT ERA OF EMPOWERMENT
Services are targeted at segments
of need through digital and
human channels.
Customized services and channels,
digital self-service, and full access to
agency and third-party services.
Real-time services provide support
across sectors and give a
360-degree view of citizen.

9. ERA OF SUPPORT ERA OF ENABLEMENT ERA OF EMPOWERMENT
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Automated workflows Cognitiveautomation
Augmented-reality
workflow
SUPPORTED BY
INTELLIGENT PROCESSES
Trajectory: Toward intelligently automated business processes that enable a new level of digital service delivery.
Journey: Agencies augment the workforce with Artificial Intelligence and virtual assistants to automate some
processes, allowing humans to focus on higher-value, creative, complex or sensitive work.
Simple processes are automated to
focus workers’ time on high-value
activities and cases that need it most.
“Virtual employees” learn through experience
and handle knowledge-based tasks, e.g.
multilingual, 24/7 customer service.
Basic citizen interactions have little to no human
touch, using automated processes and
sophisticated digital assistants. Human staff focus
more on tasks needing empathy and creativity.

10. ERA OF SUPPORT ERA OF ENABLEMENT ERA OF EMPOWERMENT
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Content-based sharing
Cross-government
verification
A super-trust
framework
SECURED BY
DIGITAL TRUST
Trajectory: Toward safe and accessible services and ecosystems that build trust with citizens.
Journey: Agencies will manage an increase in digital interactions, channels and touchpoints, and master the ability to
share, access, process and use sensitive data (for powerful yet transparent and ethical purposes) with limited security risk.
Data is shared with limited partners based
on consent and multiple authorisation and
authentication protocols.
Data is automatically synchronized
between partners; analytics tools study
user behavior and detect fraud.
Data is fully accessible subject to
governance; zero-defect policies for
data collection and management.

11. ERA OF SUPPORT ERA OF ENABLEMENT ERA OF EMPOWERMENT
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Veneer over legacy Agileintegration
Integrated business
and IT
ENABLED BY
DIGITAL AGILITY
Trajectory: Toward agile and responsive human services organisations, supported by robust and flexible technology
systems that support innovation and collaboration.
Journey: Agencies will use agile philosophy and methods to create an environment that can smoothly integrate new technologies,
maintain a focus on citizen experience and respond to opportunities and threats with equal speed and effectiveness.
Citizen-centered front end is layered
over legacy systems; piloting of
two-speed IT and DevOps.
Modern technologies and approaches—e.g.
Scrum and DevOps—allow easy integration
of new technologies.
Business and IT functions converge to
develop joint strategies and solutions.

12. ERA OF SUPPORT ERA OF ENABLEMENT ERA OF EMPOWERMENT
Ecosystem
collaboration
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Peer collaboration Open innovation market
ORCHESTRATED BY
HUMAN SERVICES AS A PLATFORM
Trajectory: Toward human services platform ecosystems that will enable cross-agency coordination, integrated with
private, NGO and other actors to create marketplaces for services and drive innovation.
Journey: Agencies will build their data management and security capabilities, while growing collaborative networks inside
and outside of government, to develop an intelligently integrated “one stop shop” for personalised, circumstance-driven
citizen services.
Collaborate with other agencies and
third-party providers using an integrated
customer analytics record.
Human services enables agencies and
private partners to interact.
New services are co-created with
citizens, government agencies and
private partners.

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THE BIG PICTURE
ROADMAP
While national situations, policies and governance models maybe be
different, the major forces of change are not. Nor are the core
imperatives that agencies need to prioritize to make a successful shift to
the era of empowerment. These imperatives, listed below, serve as
simple but powerful maxims to guide leaders along the journey to
making the personal possible.
This vision for the future of human services—of an organizational
transformation that makes the personal possible and empowers both citizens
and staff—has been developed through consultations with human services
leaders and policymakers across the globe.

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THE BIG PICTURE
ROADMAP
Citizen-centricity for
the common good
Through pressure, complexity and change,
human services must remain steadfastly
focused on the citizens they exist to help.
Becoming person-centric for a business is
about profits; becoming citizen-centric for
human services is about a better society; safer
children; greater opportunity; and accelerated
outcomes for people.
Data is the fuel
of transformation
Stronger, deeper, bigger, more accessible
and integrated data is necessary to power
personalization, predicative services,
automation, artificial intelligence, platform
ecosystems and a range of transformative
emerging technologies. Human services
agencies need to focus on larger-scale efforts
to integrate data sets, build stronger data
infrastructure and drive greater use of predictive
analytics and data-driven decision-making.
Embrace (and control)
the risk of agility
and collaboration
Human services agencies need to become
agile platforms that can seamlessly connect
within, and outside, the public sector. This
involves new risk management approaches to
replace historical obstacles. These frameworks
are needed to allow agility and collaboration to
firmly take root and support the growth of the
human services agency of the future.

15. Rainer Binder
rainer.binder@accenture.com
Global Industry Lead
Accenture Social Services
Stuttgart, Germany
TO FIND OUT HOW HUMAN SERVICES CAN MAKE THE PERSONAL POSSIBLE
AND TRANSITION TO THE ERA OF EMPOWERMENT CONTACT US:
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Schabel, Dan: Why You Can't Ignore Millennials, Forbes, September 4, 2013
To find out more about how to make the personal possible visit us at: www.accenture.com/empowerment
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are trademarks of Accenture.
Gaurav Gujral
g.gujral@accenture.com
Management Consulting and Innovation Lead
Accenture Social Services
London, UK
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