Although governments still take the lead in digital innovation in the public sector, government CIOs remain under pressure to further optimise IT and business costs as they keep facing organisational and cultural challenges that are barriers to solving the problems in the society.
[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” arrow=”yes”]The digital workplace promotes collaborative work styles; supports decentralized, mobile work environments; and embraces employees’ personal choice of technologies. Government can thus promote the adoption of new technology at the civil service workforce.[/quote]The potential of mobile, data analytics, cloud and the internet of things (IoT) to drive transformational change has been the focus of many government administrations when we talk about technology.
It is in this regard that Gartner, Inc., an information technology research and advisory company, came up with ten top strategies that government can implement to be able to use technology in transformational development.
While this is not a list of what government CIOs spend the most time or money on, they are strategic technologies that Gartner recommends that could be planned for by governments, if they haven’t done so.
Digital Workplace
The government workforce is increasingly populated with digitally literate employees, from front line workers to top-level executives. This is a business strategy to boost employee engagement and agility. The digital workplace promotes collaborative work styles; supports decentralised, mobile work environments; and embraces employees’ personal choice of technologies. Government can thus promote the adoption of new technology at the civil service workforce.
Multi-channel Citizen Engagement
Delivering an effective citizen experience requires the following approach: (1) using data to capture and understand the needs and desires of the citizen; (2) leveraging effective social media and communications to actively engage citizens; (3) allowing the citizen to engage on his or her own terms; (4) understanding the citizen’s preferred engagement channels; (5) affording seamless transitions among channels; and (6) ultimately delivering a more satisfying set of citizen interactions.
When government adopts a citizen-centric information management strategy with multi-channel citizen engagement opportunities, it will help deliver much benefit.
Open Any Data
Open any data in government results from “open by default” or “open by preference” governance policies and information management practices. These make license-free data available in machine-readable formats to anyone who has the right to access it without any requirement for identification or registration. Open data is accessible with open APIs and is not subject to any trademark or copyright. This suggests that governments will have an open policy on information accessibility.
Citizen e-ID
As government becomes more digitized, digital identity will need to become more reliable in order to serve as the core for all digital transactions. Citizen electronic identification (e-ID) refers to the orchestrated set of processes and technologies managed by governments to provide a secure domain to enable citizens to access these core resources or services. Governments should require online authentication and identity proofing, because in-person verification methods are becoming outdated for offering citizens integrated and seamless access to resources and services. This “no wrong door” business model must be able to associate each citizen with one unique and persistent identifier within the bounds of what is culturally acceptable and legally permissible.[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” arrow=”yes”]Government CIOs must adopt a threat-aware, risk-based security approach that allows governments to make knowledgeable and informed decisions about risks in a holistic fashion, allowing for a wiser allocation of resources; more sound decisions about risks and their impacts on government missions, operations, assets and people; and engagement of senior leadership in risk-based decisions.[/quote]
Analytics Everywhere
Analytics is the collection and analysis of data to provide the insight that can guide actions to increase organizational efficiency or programme effectiveness. The use of analytics at all stages of business activity and service delivery (tagged: analytics everywhere) allows leading government agencies to shift from the dashboard reporting of lagging indicators to autonomous business processes and business intelligence (BI) capabilities that help humans make better context-based decisions in real time.
Smart Machines
In practice, smart machines are a diverse combination of digital technologies that do what we once thought only people could do. As capabilities evolve rapidly, it already includes autonomous vehicles, virtual assistants and smart advisors that interact intelligently with people and other machines. Government IT leaders must explore smart machines as enhancements to existing business practices, and possibly as foundations for new public services or ways of accomplishing business goals altogether.
Internet of Things
The IoT is the network of physical objects (fixed or mobile) that contains embedded technology to communicate, monitor, sense or interact with multiple environments. The IoT architecture operates in an ecosystem that includes things, communication, applications and data analysis, and is a critical enabler for digital business applications in all private-sector and public-sector industries. The business use cases and adoption rate by government agencies vary according to service domain or program mission. Government activities and business models can take advantage of the IoT; for example, pay-for-use or subscription-based taxation models, smart waste bin collection on city streets, smart traffic light system, and some of the likes
Digital Government Platforms
Governments face constant pressure to improve service delivery and save costs. Digital platforms reduce effort and facilitate user-centric design. These platforms deliver services such as payments, identity management and verification, reusable application services and notifications (for example, SMS and email) that are commonly used across multiple domains. Globally, governments are taking a platform approach to simplify processes, improve citizen interaction and reduce expenditure.
Software-Defined Architecture
Software-defined architecture (SDA) inserts an intermediary between the requester and the provider of a service so that the service can change more dynamically — in other words, it is the IT equivalent of changing the tires while the car is moving. Adding a layer of software to abstract and virtualize networks, infrastructure or security has proved to be a useful way of deploying and utilizing infrastructure. Applying the same technique to software architecture improves the manageability and agility of the code so that the organization can respond to the fluidity requirements of digital government and the IoT. Some government organizations have begun implementing software-designed infrastructure (SDI), but most are still operating in traditional data centers.
Risk-Based Security
The cyber-security threat environment is constantly evolving, but it represents only one dimension of a complex, multifaceted set of threats and risks. Government CIOs must adopt a threat-aware, risk-based security approach that allows governments to make knowledgeable and informed decisions about risks in a holistic fashion, allowing for a wiser allocation of resources; more sound decisions about risks and their impacts on government missions, operations, assets and people; and engagement of senior leadership in risk-based decisions.
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