For governments, crowdsourcing can be an important tool (with related video)

Governments are using crowdsourcing to complete data-driven tasks. GPN recently got the views on this topic from Don Mackenzie, Director of Business Process Crowdsourcing at Waltham, Mass.-based Lionbridge Technologies. Besides translating content and managing websites, Lionbridge helps state governments in Mississippi Pennsylvania and other states process tax returns through crowdsourcing. The company has been providing services to government and other organizations since 1986. It has 26 global solutions centers.

Through crowdsourcing, organizations obtain information or input into a particular task or project by enlisting the services of a number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet. Lionbridge is a crowdsourcing provider, with more than 125,000 crowd professionals working remotely from the cloud. The company pre-screens and trains its workers, creating a highly educated crowd working around the clock to get data-driven tasks completed.

In the case of Pennsylvania, Lionbridge partnered with its Department of Revenue to process more than 10 million paper tax returns last year. This way, the state government didn’t have to hire and train their own temporary workers – meaning they could save on budget and avoid straining the staff.

By using the crowd, document turnaround time improved by 70 percent and processing accuracy clocked in at a superior 99.9 percent. With all paper tax returns now digitized in the same format as e-Returns, the crowd can also run advanced analytics to seek out fraud or irregularities.

In this video interview, Mackenzie tells how his firm’s crowdsourcing process is an on-demand service, that government entities, even small municipalities, can use when needed. Mackenzie also outlines how crucial taxpayer data is secure and protected in several steps throughout the process.

The Lionbridge executive offers advice to government managers on how to find a crowdsourcing partner to handle tasks. “Find a partner with a strong track record and a solid internal security setup,” advises Mackenzie. The vendor must have adequate resources to stay the course, adds Mackenzie.

Not everything can be crowdsourced, says Mackenzie. Governments can use a crowdsourcing provider, however, to improve services, improve document processing and handle accounts payable and receivables, says Mackenzie.

For more information, watch the interview below:

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