After nearly a decade of
"doing more with less," government CIOs
remain under pressure to further optimize IT and business costs while leading
digital innovation in the public sector, according to Gartner, Inc. Government CIOs face organizational
and cultural challenges that are barriers to harnessing the synergistic
potential of social, mobile, data analytics, cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT)
to drive transformational change.
Rick Howard, research vice president at
Gartner, said legacy silos of systems, data and processes reinforce “business
as usual” practices and behaviors that limit government participation in
broader partner ecosystems capable of supporting fully digital end-to-end
citizen services.
“In
the digital service economy, government must make strategic investments in IT
or risk perpetuating suboptimal business and service models that are
financially unsustainable in the long term,” said Mr. Howard. “Government CIOs
who are too slow to adopt the technology innovations that are transforming
private sector service industries will increase business risk and cost, while
compromising the mission of their organizations.”
Spending
by national, federal and local governments worldwide on technology products and
services is forecast to grow slightly by 0.3 percent to $430.1 billion in 2016,
growing to $476.1 billion by 2020. This is a turnaround after a 5.2 percent
decrease in 2015.
To
enable government transformation initiatives, Gartner has identified the top 10
strategic technologies in 2016 and provides recommendations to CIOs and IT
leaders regarding adoption and benefits. It is not a list of what government
CIOs spend the most time or money on, rather it is a list of strategic
technologies that Gartner recommends they should have a plan for in 2016.
1) Digital
Workplace
The government workforce is increasingly populated with digitally
literate employees, from frontline workers to top-level executives. The digital workplace is a business strategy to boost employee
engagement and agility through a more consumerized work environment. The
digital workplace promotes collaborative work styles; supports decentralized,
mobile work environments; and embraces employees' personal choice of
technologies.
2) Multichannel
Citizen Engagement
Delivering
an effective citizen experience requires a holistic approach to the citizen:
(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. Adopting a citizen-centric information
management strategy with multichannel citizen engagement opportunities will
deliver quantifiable benefits.
3) 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
published as collected at the source ("raw") at the lowest
granularity, as determined by privacy, security or data quality considerations.
Open data is accessible with open APIs and
is not subject to any trademark or copyright.
4) Citizen
e-ID
As
government becomes more digitalized, 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.
5) Analytics
Everywhere
Analytics is
the collection and analysis of data to provide the insight that can guide
actions to increase organizational efficiency or program effectiveness. The
pervasive use of analytics at all stages of business activity and service
delivery — 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.
6) Smart
Machines
In
practice, smart machines are a diverse combination of digital technologies that
do what we once thought only people could do. While capabilities are evolving
rapidly, it already includes deep neural networks, 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.
7) 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 business models are emerging that take
advantage of the IoT; for example, pay-for-use or subscription-based taxation
models, smart waste bin collection on city streets, and the remote monitoring
of elderly patients in assisted-living settings.
8) 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.
9) 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.
10) Risk-Based
Security
The
cybersecurity 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.
Four
new trends emerged in 2016 with the potential to significantly benefit
government performance within the next three to five years. Analytics everywhere, smart
machines, software-defined architecture and risk-based security will each challenge governance,
human resources management, sourcing and financing practices.
“Many
of these technology trends change business models in ways that need to be
reflected in more modern policies, especially those related to privacy or
regulation,” said Mr. Howard. “CIOs will need to be front and center in
providing advice to policymaking bodies and working with industry experts who
can consult on options and impacts.”
