Getting ready

**Reaching the future, faster**

It’s clear that technology will form a huge role in the future of the public sector. But it’ll only be possible to reap the benefits if you can deploy and harness it effectively.

Making the wrong decisions now will cause problems for years to come. But following the right path will see dividends very quickly.

Ensuring you set out on the right foot will require you to consider some important fundamentals.

Go back to basics

In recent years public sector digital transformation projects have tended towards the impressive and the flashy. In the post-COVID world, it’s less important to be seen to be adopting all the latest tools, and more important to ensure you adopt only what you need to meet your short- and long-term needs.

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In the short term, this will mean ensuring your people know what’s expected of them (and where they should be doing it), that they have access to the data and systems necessary to do the job, and that the citizens who rely on your services can access them without disruption.

In the long term, it will mean anticipating citizens’ needs in terms of designing and improving services, and only adopting systems that have a clear role in doing so.

Think forward

We’re already beginning to see the future of work becoming the present of work before our very eyes. But it’s unlikely to stay this way forever. Whether the future for your organization is home working, office working, or something new, you’ll need to devise a working strategy that truly reflects your new way of working.

This will help you to make the right decisions about the tools, platforms, and models you need in order to maintain and improve your levels of service provision.

Acknowledge the legacy issue to move beyond it

One of the biggest challenges pre-COVID for government digitization, legacy systems are an issue that won’t disappear overnight. It’s true of both sides of the Atlantic – but perhaps more of an issue in the US, where many parts of the country lag behind the rest when it comes to their transformation efforts.

Pre-COVID, most technological modernizations were confined to front-end upgrades. However, the scale of the current challenge is so great that it will likely be beyond the capacity of existing systems to handle.

This means you’ll need to know the systems you currently rely on, know how data is stored within them and shared between them, and have a plan for migration, replacement, and retirement ready.

This step will also present you with a unique opportunity to determine what any new systems must be able to do, and how they should go about doing it. Aiding greatly in your selection and procurement processes.

Avoid the temptation to resort to “quick fixes”

The technology solutions you buy into now will affect your ability to deliver services, retain talent, and innovate for decades to come. Simply choosing a tool because it solves a specific problem you’re dealing with right now is not a viable plan of action.

Instead, you’ll need to base your choices on the ability of platforms to integrate different parts of your organization, automate the day-to-day admin functions that take time away from service delivery, and which allow safe and secure consolidation of all the data your people need to get the job done.

Download the brochure – A historic opportunity for public sector