In Karlskrona, a city known for its naval base and its world heritage, work is underway to realize a vision where entrepreneurs will be able to navigate to the municipality's services with ease and efficiency.
The vision is becoming a reality thanks to a strong collaboration with Onify, which together with the municipality is developing a business portal - a digital meeting place for all entrepreneurs. The portal is not only a solution to the fragmentation that often challenges municipal services, it is a cornerstone of a larger vision of a digital hub that gathers everything in one place for both residents and municipal employees, whether it is an application for a building permit, communication in a case or viewing their permits.
From fragmentation to cohesion
Recognizing the need for change is at the heart of the vision that drove the development of a new digital platform. "The lack of coherent service makes it difficult for both entrepreneurs and municipal employees to get a complete picture of their involvement with the municipality," says Mats Hellman, business developer at Karlskrona Municipality. According to Mats, Karlskrona is not alone. "We probably work like many other municipalities... a bit fragmented."
Mats Hellman, Karlskrona municipality
"The lack of a coherent service makes it difficult for both entrepreneurs and municipal staff to get a full picture of their engagement with the municipality."
Next steps in digital development
For Karlskrona municipality, this is just the beginning of a larger journey.
"We have created e-services for companies before and built a self-service bank, so we have that in place," explains Fredrik Sjölin, Head of Unit at the Digitalization Unit. He emphasizes the importance of the business pilot function as a way to coordinate business issues that affect several administrations within the municipality, but also stresses that the work on the business portal represents a comprehensive next step towards improving and deepening digital interactions.
A digital meeting place
A central part of Karlskrona Municipality's goal for an improved business community is a digital business portal - where entrepreneurs can get an overview of services and issues in one place. "We want to offer companies an easy way to access, follow and get an overview of their engagements with the municipality", Fredrik explains. The portal aims to become a digital meeting place where entrepreneurs can easily interact with administrators, ask questions, manage their permits and access information tailored to their specific needs, which will significantly improve communication and accessibility.
Fredrik Sjölin, Karlskrona municipality
"We want to offer companies to easily access, follow and get an overview
of their engagement with the municipality."
Internal collaboration portal
To complement the external portal, Karlskrona municipality is also developing an internal collaboration portal. This portal is designed to give the municipality an overview of all cases concerning entrepreneurs, including the status of cases handled by other administrations outside the business unit. "On the inside, we are building a collaboration space, the internal collaboration portal brings in data from existing business systems and makes it available cross-functionally," explains Mats. The system will enable the municipality's employees to work in a more integrated and efficient way, which in turn improves the service to entrepreneurs.
A vision for the future
Karlskrona municipality's ambition goes beyond a business portal. A future development of the municipality's digital hub where the portal is expanded to include different aspects of citizens' engagement with the municipality. The project with Onify aims to establish a comprehensive digital ecosystem, a citizen portal. "If you as a business owner can go in and manage your company's affairs, a municipal resident could go in and manage their property in the same way", says Mats.
Karlskrona municipality's work with Onify includes both solving the current challenges and the ambition to define how the municipality can support and interact with its business owners and residents in a better way. By building a solution that allows for a more coherent and accessible service, it sets a new standard for municipal service delivery. It is a vision that extends beyond the traditional self-service model, towards a more integrated and interactive digital presence that meets the unique needs of all Karlskrona residents, business owners and employees.
The choice of partner was crucial
The choice of Onify as partner for the project was crucial and forms the basis for a future where Karlskrona Municipality not only improves its services for the business community but also for its residents, through an integrated and accessible digital presence.
Mats Hellman, Karlskrona municipality
"We have a good and dynamic partnership with Onify who really understand
our needs and the journey we are facing"
The successful collaboration between Karlskrona kommun and Onify emphasizes the importance of choosing the right partner for digital transformation projects. By working together in an open dialog and being flexible in the face of new discoveries and needs, they have together created a solution that not only meets today's requirements but is also scalable for the future.
Robert Lundsten , technical manager and founder of Onify shares Karlskrona Municipality's view of a successful collaboration, where the key is to have the same ambitions and the willingness to think new. "That has always been Onify's core, to think outside the box and do something new together with our customers," he says. He thinks the collaboration with Karlskrona Municipality has been exciting and instructive for both parties and looks forward to continuing to work together.
Robert Lundsten, Onify
"That has always been the core of Onify, to think outside the box and do something new
together with our customers."
A source of inspiration
By sharing the journey Karlskrona Municipality is undertaking, we want to inspire other municipalities, which are facing similar digital transformation challenges, to take the step towards a more efficient, accessible and citizen-focused service. We see great potential with a digital innovation that renews and improves public service in the country's municipalities.
