Digital transformation in municipalities for the planning, delivery, use and management of infrastructure assets: Strategic and organizational framework

As the acceleration of technological development in the built asset industry brings on waves of digital transformation (DT), traditional ways of doing and organizing are being disrupted, especially on the part of large public owners such as municipalities. For these owners, these waves of transformation require constant adaptation as they compete with existing initiatives and embedded legacy practices. This paper presents the results of the second part of a longitudinal research project aimed at framing digital transformation within municipalities to improve urban infrastructure lifecycles. More specifically, the paper presents the results of work undertaken to operationalize, extend and further validate the digital transformation framework that has been developed in part 1 and which is presented elsewhere. The theoretical framework acts as a guide and analysis tool for the digital transformation of municipalities and aims to help them reduce and/or eliminate the barriers and challenges in this digital transformation. To do so, the results from a survey conducted within 44 municipalities and interviews conducted with 13 municipalities of different sizes are presented and discussed through the theoretical framework. The results show that data and information management remain the key issues, especially in a siloed organizational context such as those found within municipalities. Moreover, a significant amount of organizations remain unaware of how to approach digital transformation which in turn leads to disinterest or disengagement in digital transformation, which results in localized or fragmented initiatives. This in turn can cause delays in implementing transformational initiatives and contributes to maintaining a low level of digital maturity. The study also highlights the critical lack of human resources, expertise and appropriate training to support digital transformation.