Our ambition: a digital mailbox for 80% of Belgians
By Bram Lerouge, CEO of digital administration platform, Doccle
The Belgian government must become more digital. That’s the general, unequivocal message that Doccle wishes to convey. Making the government ‘digital first’ by 2020 should be a priority. The political vision is that, by then, each and every Belgian should be able to communicate with public authorities entirely electronically. Doccle fully supports this ambition.
After all, a digital government is the only route to success, and the only way to continue playing a role on the international stage. Digitisation makes the government a more effective motor for Belgian prosperity. It also creates more peace of mind, free time and financial security for Belgian citizens.
A user-friendly digital government eliminates one of the stress factors in their hectic daily grind. A Doccle survey of 1,051 Belgian families reveals that we spend an average of 1.6 hours a week on our administration. This amounts to 83.2 hours (or more than two full-time working weeks) per year. User-friendly, digital solutions for government administrations can reduce this figure demonstrably.
In addition to time savings, digitisation also provides simplicity. The Belgian government is already on the right track with eBox, the number one platform on which businesses and citizens can receive and manage all their documents in one place.
The building blocks of a powerful digital mailbox
As in real life, people only require one digital mailbox. They don’t collect some letters from the supermarket and have others delivered to their home. Physical post arrives at a single address, and it shouldn’t be any different for digital mail.
It’s essential that the development of this type of digital mailbox is tailored to the user. The four Doccle precepts for a digital mailbox are:
1. A digital mailbox must have a preventive effect
Doccle works with an early-warning system that provides an alert when certain bills are about to become overdue. This prevents users from being stung by penalty charges. All information is instantly and clearly accessible.
2. A digital mailbox must be secure
“Privacy by design” should be the norm for digital platforms. Companies that integrate their services on the Doccle platform become co-operators and thus co-owners. Third parties are thus unable to hijack the end users’ private data at a later stage. Private data is protected and secured by the specific company structure.
3. A digital mailbox must be available on every medium
The choice for a particular medium should always rest with the user. Younger generations, for instance, decisively opt for mobile access to information, whilst for the over 50s, a desktop or tablet remains the favoured channel. Making the platform universally accessible reduces the digital divide and ensures that no user gets left behind. The over 45s are actually Doccle’s largest user group.
4. A digital mailbox must feel familiar
A decent digital administrative platform responds to user habits. Aligning platform processes to daily administrative activities is essential, as it makes the platform feel familiar and intuitive. People are also wedded to social media. Creating a digital environment that operates according to the same processes as social media platforms, such as Facebook, is therefore extremely attractive. Doccle sees ease of use as the tool in bridging the digital divide.
Our ambition: making 80% of all Belgians “digital”
Since Doccle’s inception in 2014, the number of partners has doubled on an annual basis. This exponential growth creates a “network effect”. New partners attract new users. The more people and organisations that use Doccle, the more feedback we receive on better aligning the system to user requirements.
More and more people are using Doccle. We smashed our 1-million user milestone at the end of last year. Our current ambition is to help 80% of Belgians process their administration electronically.
The government is digitising aggressively. The eBox is a radical simplification that places the ball firmly in the citizens’ court. We advise them not to wait any longer: now that a simple solution exists, there’s no reason to hesitate. Create your eBox today and take control of your own digital administration.
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