Australia’s Nobel Laureates Vol III State of Our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond Building momentum post-pandemic Special Report: Transforming Local Government Brought to you by Information Professionals Group and One Mandate Group
Page 5 - Digital Services Post Pandemic: The Local Government Perspective
INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS
Digital readiness can be measured, and is measured at country, state and community levels, and provides a per spective on areas of relative strength and weakness of interest to every local government area. This article by Cisco Vice president, and a former Board colleague of mine on the AIIA Board, Ken Boal, describes the annual Cisco Digital Readiness index, and its key insights. It is one of several digital scorecards that I follow.
Mark is at the forefront of digital technology transformation, known for his ability to engage people at every level, and honing in on client priorities to find the right formula for organisations to grow their way. He is a passionate advocate for the benefits that effective digital technology brings to industry, community, and the country, and has seen first-hand the challenges around digital technology that organisations face today.
Page 7 - A Resilient Digital Australia
2 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group2
Local Government is the closest government to the community, has many opportunities to add value to the life of citizens, but is also challenged from many directions in delivering to those needs. This selection of articles aims to prompt thinking on how local government leaders can navigate these challenges. I have selected these articles from the Nobel Laureates e-book, plus written one specifically for local gov ernment and exclusive to this magazine. I hope you get immense value, insights and inspiration from them.
Page 3 - Digital Services – A new level asked from regional providers
Written by Australia’s Nobel Laureates Volume III, they introduce the benefits of finding common ground between parties so that greater value can be untapped and more digital investment justified.
How well positioned is Local Government after the last few years of rapid change? Are there lessons, has there been a strong legacy created, or are there some hangovers that will require addressing due to the speed with which some change happened? This article unpacks that question for Local Government.
How did digital adoption manage to accelerate so significantly through the pandemic? I look back at the dy namics of what happened to create the conditions for this to be achieved, and whether there is some common traits that allow for these to be repeated, by all organisations, with these phenomenon particularly noticeable in smaller and regional organisations.
Page 9 - Cooperation key to Australia’s digital transformation
Mark Nicholls, CEO, Information Professionals Group.
Page 10 - How can Australia build smarter cities Cloud computing is a major enabler for many aspects of digital innovation, including in driving local government digitalisation and smart cities. This article from Amazon Web Services' (AWS) Paul Brescia, introduces the types of local government projects he is seeing from an AWS perspective.
Mark’s passion is contributed through IPG and its clients and his active role across industry and government with the AIIA, the peak industry association for the digital economy, where he serves as National Deputy Chair.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdnicholls/
In my experience in the ICT industry, I have wit nessed many significant changes surrounding mainstream adoption of technologies and have become familiar with the various factors that play a role in the speed of technology adoption, hav ing been engaged in technology adoption for over 3 decades.Around 9 years ago, I published a series of arti cles and delivered several presentations on the topic “The Pressure for Change”. In these talks, I set out to describe the tension created among three par ties, namely digital innovators trying to gain trac tion for new products and services, the communi ty’s ability to change and adopt these innovations and become customers, and government’s abil ity to either de-regulate or regulate to support the change that innovation brings. My proposition was that government is generally the slower of these three, and so those innovations that rely on regulatory change will gain traction late. Next slowest was the community. People need a compelling argument to change their habits, and many innovations simply don’t stack up. Those that did stack up initially, were those where the product or service could be digitalised readily, creating convenience and improved utility for customers. Thus, banking, entertainment (TV/ movies/music), information and knowledge (news papers, magazines, books and directories) were all “first movers”, as governments had a minimal role to play here and therefore weren’t slowing the pro cess by “getting in the way” (or failing to “get out of theOtherway”).innovations were either digitalising aspects of existing physical services, or creating new phys ical services with the help of various digital solu tions. This included ride-sharing services like Uber; food and grocery delivery services; and a number of other improvements when it came to researching and buying products and services, even if the final sale and delivery was done in a non-digital way. In fact, house, car, and many other types of purchases are now performed partly online and partly offline, with some providers having moved (or moving into) fully digital sales models. Some of these generated more interest from Government than others, especially where they conflicted with existing regulation. Ride-sharing is the most notable example here. To their credit, Uber (and others) adopted a “crash or crash through” approach to that problem. It is unlikely they ever would have gained sufficient patience from their New community expectations have all organisations trying to keep up with digital transformation.
3Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond
DIGITAL SERVICES - A NEW LEVEL ASKED FROM REGIONAL PROVIDERS By NichollsMark
Mark Nicholls is a partner and CEO of Information Professionals Group (IPG), as well as National Deputy Chair of the Australian Information Industry Association.
In many cases, community expectations for digital ser vices are moving faster than some organisations can pro vide. Those organisations most challenged are smaller organisations, those that operate in regulated environ ments with restrictions on revenue growth, and this also tends to be regulated service providers in the non-met ropolitan regions of Australia. This may include local gov ernment, utilities, healthcare, community, and aged care providers. Furthermore, skills are a big challenge generally, and in regional areas this is an even bigger issue.
4 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group4 investors and achieved success if they waited for every government to go about due consideration and change. They created a problem and forced governments to address it. It worked, but was not without damage. A number of legacy license holders were big losers and various governments, even today, are still taking rear guardHowaction.hasthe pandemic affected this dynamic? Firstly, community priorities have changed. The general pub lic needed better ways of going about their lives due to enforced lockdowns or self-imposed restrictions on movement. Industry (and Government) service provid ers needed new ways of delivering services to custom ers, citizens, staff and students. And Government, in their regulatory role, wanted to facilitate many of these as it helped to minimise the impact of restrictions on phys ical movement by supporting as much economic and community activity as possible.
What is the solution to all this unfulfilled digital trans formation ambition?
One answer lies in the lesson of the pandemic. As stated above, “the interests of all parties aligned and we gained massive acceleration in digital adoption across so many sectors.”
Our building body of case studies are increasingly reflective of the quiet promise that is delivering results across Australia.
Sharing technology platforms, digital skills, and inter nal technology capabilities all offer accelerators for regional providers. Cloud technologies offer capabilities that support this. Commonwealth and state governments have been quietly adopting various forms of shared tech nology provision for some years now. This lowers the cost of digital service delivery, allowing scarce funds to be redirected into improving services. That investment in improvements also goes further with shared use of the same capability. While traditional “shared services” delivered some unfulfilled promises over a decade ago, the new shared models supported by new technologies are now gener ating many benefits for the clusters, consortiums, and alliances that adopt them.
If we align the interests of regional service providers, how can they better collaborate, and potentially create economies of scale to digitise more quickly? And with their customers geographically distributed more than most, they have an even more compelling argument to provide digitised services.
As a result, the interests of all parties aligned, and we gained massive acceleration in digital adoption across so many sectors. Many of the technologies adopted have been around for many years, even decades, so it was not a question of whether these were new, but whether they were being newly adopted. These technologies created the ena blers, the pre-existing capability that could be scaled. This included cloud technologies - allowing services and systems to be accessible anywhere and scaled immediately – as well as video conferencing, which was already gaining wider adoption with Zoom making the services provided by Cisco and others more accessible. Microsoft was already well advanced on its Teams solu tions, although they did accelerate their development through the pandemic, as did many technology provid ers. Even QR codes, first used by millions through the pandemic, have been around for over 25 years - it was defined as an ISO (International Standards Organisation) standard 22 years ago. As we move slowly (hopefully) out of the COVID-19 pandemic and into an endemic phase, what have we learned in digital innovation adoption and where are the opportunities today/tomorrow?
DIGITAL SERVICES POST PANDEMIC: THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE
The first difference between local governments was similar to the difference in Governments and that is based on their digital aspiration and reflected by their willingness to invest in digital technology and as a result, their pre-existing culture, and capabilities.
For those councils with the contemporary dig ital platforms and resources, their acceleration through the pandemic was greatest. They had stable adaptable platforms and the capability to The pandemic accelerated digital technology adoption. But it was not all equal, and the experience across local government is a case in point.
1Understanding the
Consistent with our commentary on Government, the adoption of enterprise platforms and cloud varies significantly across local governments. Those further advanced on this journey have the better integration of processes and data, and better foundations to sup port agility and scalability of new services.
As previously stated, the digitisation journey is about more than the technology. The technology is an important ingredient, but just as important, or even more so is the culture and capability to utilise technology to support shifts in business strategy and policy, or to deliver existing policy more effectively.
By NichollsMark Pandemic’s Impact on Local Pittsburgh)
Building further on the article series inspired from that published in Australia’s Nobel Laureates Volume III, where we highlighted the amazing speed of technology adoption through the pandemic and then considered the sectors that we work with at IPG. The broad view was very pos itive on how technology, community and govern ment interests aligned to accelerate technology adoption and create many benefits. As we consider those sectors we work with at IPG, in Government, Local Government, Utilities, Health and Community Services and Growing Companies, this article unpacks the Local Government sector.
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The impact on digital technology maturity and capability through the pandemic was generally posi tive for many local governments. There were some dif ferences, but most local governments moved forward.
Nobel Laureates VOL III State of
With pre-existing trajectories accelerated, those that had digitisation journeys underway were better placed to accelerate much more rapidly than oth ers. This is very true of Local Government, although many local governments are relatively small organ isations, and with that comes the ability to be nim ble and adjust quickly. So, their future is far from being set in stone.
The phenomenon put forward previously and well unpacked by Scott Galloway , Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, is also very true of Local Government. The pandemic accel erated pre-existing trends, underway prior to the pandemic.Thisisnot exclusive to Australia either. A University of Pennsylvania report1 of 150 municipalities revealed that the pandemic has highlighted pre-existing issues and exasperated them. Local Government is the clos est government to the community, has many oppor tunities to add value to the life of citizens, but is also challenged from many directions. The pre-existing trends include increasing expec tations of digitisation by citizens and customers, pressure across a range of revenue sources, a wide breadth of service delivery, with commensurate breadth in technology, requiring a wide range of skills, in an environment where those skills are in strong demand.
Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond
Australia’s our
Government | University of
6 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group6 leverage them to meet the rapid and emergent demands of the pandemic. In some cases, due to legacy technology that was not easily adapted to remote working or digitised service delivery or simply through the lack of having sufficient skills, some Councils struggled to evolve quickly enough for staff and citizen needs. And there were many in between these two ends of theInspectrum.alocalgovernment context, enterprise platforms and cloud also support the achievement of smart city objectives. Sometimes smart city objectives are sought after by Mayors and Councillors, because of the potential community benefits that are available. However, not all Councils have the platforms in place to support the inte gration of smart city technologies into the Council in a scalable way. And not all Mayors and Councillors appre ciate these technology inter-dependencies. This makes many smart city initiatives more of a pilot than some thing that creates sustainable and scalable outcomes. While having contemporary platforms is an accelera tor, it is not a mandatory pre-requisite. Some local gov ernments are yet to move on from their legacy platforms but through agile and iterative development are creating incremental improvements in service delivery and did so through the pandemic. Workflow, automation, and analytics are examples of where some are making pro gress. See our reference to this in our government article In some Councils, the speed of execution left some hangover issues. Some Councils effectively took two steps forward and maybe 1-2 steps back as missteps needed rectification and rushed implementations created duplication. Where local governments introduced new tech nologies to support staff and citizens' digital needs, this was delivered additional to existing practices, rather than replacing existing practices. One common example is the introduction of Office365, including SharePoint online and Teams. This created massive acceleration in work from home capabilities and in integrating records and information management into normal day to day practices…a massive positive. However, it also added at least one new records management solution (SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive) to Councils which already had existing records man agement solutions (Records Manager, Confluence, OpenText, Recfind, others). And this is an area which has significant policy and legislative obligations on Councils. As a result, access to records become more fragmented and complex, effective records manage ment more challenging and policy compliance risk has increased. We are working with a number of Councils that are now cleaning up these areas to maintain the gains made and removing some new risks that had emerged as a result of the speed with which they reacted, and the duplication created. As the pandemic progressed, some Councils faced shifting populations creating various demands on local government, which in turn created demand in digital technology needs. Digital technology spend was then under pressure with competition for funding across multiple areas. Those organisations further down the digital maturity journey could cope with the increase in scale and demands more easily than those that were relying on legacy technology.
Navya driverless EV shuttle bus charging on Victoria Square in Adelaide city on a day.
Those relying on legacy technologies were less able to scale, or in doing so consumed more finan cial and people resources in doing so. This redirection of resources takes away from improvement priorities and dedicates more resource into just maintaining the status However,quo.all of these challenges are solvable. And local governments are generally less political and much closer to understanding and needing to satisfy community service needs. If this includes digital tech nology as a potential solution, then so be it. But it will require building the culture and capability as well as the digital technology to support Council objectives. We would welcome your views and input on all aspects of this article, so please get in touch to share your views. For more on getting the building blocks of innovation delivery in place, see this article, by IPG CEO, Mark Nicholls
By Ken BoalD igital readiness is defined as how well-po sitioned a country, state or territory is to benefit from the digital economy across seven components: basic needs, human capi tal, business and government investment, ease of doing business, startup environment, tech nology adoption and technology Infrastructure. Understanding our digital readiness supports decision-making in key areas where further investment or acceleration of capabilities may be Ciscorequired.released its second Australian Digital Readiness Index in 2020, providing a snapshot of Australia’s evolving digital capability at the state and territory level, and acting as a guide for where investments are needed.
Digital readiness is a defining characteristic of successful 21st century societies, and where we choose to invest is key.
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Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond
Australia remains among the forefront of digitally transformed nations, ranking 12th across the globe in terms of digital readiness (according to Cisco’s 2019 Global Digital Readiness Index). It follows Iceland and Luxembourg, and stands among Singapore, the US and European nations.
This infrastructure will deliver to its full poten tial only if we invest in building the skills of our people to use, create and defend digital services.
A RESILIENT DIGITAL AUSTRALIA
Little did we know that two years later the value of those investments would be repaid many times over by providing Australia with a robust and comprehensive digital capability that has played a critical role in our response to the COVID-19 crisis. While the pandemic has exacted a high economic and social toll, its consequences would have been much greater had Australia not already made significant investments in digital readiness.Forexample, the deployment of high-speed national network infrastructure has meant many organisations can keep their staff both safe and productive by enabling them to work from home. That same infrastructure provides a vital connection for thousands of students who partici pate in remote learning and has become the back bone for remote health consultations, keeping many frontline responders safe. Likewise, invest ment in digital skills has allowed businesses and government agencies to accelerate their rollout of digital services, including bricks-and-mortar restaurants and retailers who have switched to e-commerce to continue trading.
The investments will play a vital role in help ing Australia navigate through the post-COVID-19 world, but further work is needed if we are to achieve the productivity uplifts necessary to bring Australia out of recession and ensure we remain competitive. Cisco’s global research has always shown a high correlation between digital readi ness and economic prosperity, and other nations are stepping up their investments accordingly.
Australian industry has a desperate and grow ing need for people equipped for a dynamic, digitised world, including having general dig ital skills that help businesses to move up the value chain as industries further automate. Development of "blue tech" or digital trade skills will be vital to meeting those needs. Critically, we must also be sure not to lose sight of the need for the outcomes of these investments to be shared equitably across Australia. Equitable access to digital services and training represents the 21st century equiv alent of the age-old Australian concept of giv ing everyone a "fair go". The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of continued invest ment to ensure those communities that are least served digitally today do not experience addi tional hardship from future events. It is important that we don’t become com placent about Australia’s digital readiness. The index highlights the need for accelerat ing new investment with a focus on improving Australia’s global competitiveness and bridging the divide between states to build further soci etal resilience. Growing digital divides within and between states need to be addressed for Australia to unleash the totality of its digi tal potential. Government, industry and aca demia will have key roles to play in empow ering our country to become a global digital leader and build resilience for our economy.
In addition to the need for ongoing support of the higher education sector, Cisco has joined forces with TAFE Directors Australia and our part ner Optus to call on the Australian Government to assess the growth in technology-intensive jobs requiring sub-degree-level qualifications in order to help the TAFE sector more rapidly pre pare for, and respond to, anticipated demand. We have also called for funding of the develop ment and delivery of micro-credential digital programs to help in the reskilling and upskilling of workers displaced by recent developments.
Australian industry has a desperate and growing need for people equipped for a dynamic, digitised world
The example of rapidly emerging countries such as Singapore, which ranked first in the global Index, should help Australia set its ambition for digitalDigitalreadiness.readiness is the key to economic pros perity, but it is also critical to building societal resilience. Only by continuing to invest in our digital capabilities can we maximise the benefits in the good times and ensure we are best placed to manage the future crises that will inevitably come our way.
8 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group8 Ken Boal is vice president, Cisco, Australia & New Zealand.
A pandemic has required Australian industry and governments to work in concert like never before, with better community outcomes. While the coronavirus may not be as “novel” as it once was, the remarkable advancements in applied digital innovation during the pandemic are. Several technologies and processes, for example, QR codes, online shopping, at home video conferencing and eLearning, have become part and parcel in the daily lives of so many Australians. Time travel back to 2019 and anyone invested in digi tal transformation, whether in the private or public sector, would have suggested that these examples were margin ally useful additions to the lives of Australians, and perhaps some years away from becoming mainstream.
As we manoeuvre out of this pandemic (albeit there may still be a way to go), the best legacy seems to be the contin ued collaboration for the greater public good. This working together in harmony is vital when considering the number of other significant challenges Australia is facing (not lim ited to climate change and growing external geo-political threats as two examples) that require the country’s best and brightest minds to work together.
We have seen the government’s ability to pool and direct resources, industry’s ability to deliver at scale and quite often at pace, and lastly, we see the community’s ability to adapt and adopt, if there is a sufficient reason for them to do so. When combined, these newly adopted technologies illustrate how governments, industry and the commu nity can work together to innovate, adapt, adopt and ultimately make everyone's lives better by solving com mon challenges. It has been good to see what can hap pen when these three forces collaborate to the extent we haveNewexperienced.SouthWales, Victoria and ACT governments vie for being the leading jurisdiction in the country when it comes to digitising everyday interactions between citizens and their government. This is according to the recent history of Telstra’s Digital Inclusion Index, Cisco’s Digital Readiness Index and Intermedium’s digital government report card.
COOPERATION KEY TO AUSTRALIA’S TRANSFORMATIONDIGITAL
9Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond
The Federal Government is also moving quickly and has set its plan to be one of the top three digital governments in the world by 2025. Meanwhile, industry is getting on with the job of continually improving and refining their digital capa bilities for their clients, their staff and other stakeholders.
For more than 20 years, Information Professionals Group has supported growing companies, councils, government, utilities and health and community organisations, to nav igate the complexities and sensitivities associated with implementing change in challenging environments. The company’s leadership has always informed its work by asking “How does the customer benefit?”
While we hope it is a long time before the next crisis of pandemic proportions, we know that this spirit of collab oration can undoubtedly go a long way to tackling other complex challenges. It is in this vein that we should col laborate: understand the strengths and constraints of each other and, in concert, devise and implement solutions accordingly – for the betterment of the country and for the life of each citizen.
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The advent of cloud computing has enabled organisations of all sizes to create smart city platforms. As a result of this, quality of life is enhanced by improving existing, and adding new, services, for citizens, businesses and visitors. For example, city councils can now build digital solutions to integrate and analyse data, or connect sensors using IoT, AI, and data analytics technologies. Previously these pro jects required significant capital expenditure, however using cloud-based solutions, can now be spun up or down easily, and scaled quickly.
Paul Brescia interviews Craig Lawton, IoT & Smart Cities Specialist for ANZ Public Sector, Amazon Web Services.
HOW CAN AUSTRALIA BUILD SMARTER CITIES?
How has thinking changed around smart cit ies in Australia in the past five years?
What are the roles for the public and private sector when creating smart cities? How can both work together when planning?
The role of the public sector is to enable smart cities to grow, innovate, create jobs and provide timely services to citizens. Their key roles include enhancing the technology, security, and connec tivity of traditional cities; providing required infra structure, and setting expectations, and standards, within the private sector.
Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond Companies within the private sector are inno vating with new technologies including video analytics and IoT, while also building a digi tal “bridge” to support traditional engineering demands in transport and utilities, for exam ple. Outside of the private sector, collaboration is occurring in education and start-up incuba tion hubs, which will support long-term eco nomicBothgrowth.private and public sectors understand the centrality and importance of data to a smart city. It is therefore imperative that governments clarify and define standards for data manage ment including, ownership, sharing, interoper ability, and public access. This allows societies to respond to real-world challenges, including transport congestion, environmental protection, emergencies and urban planning.
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What can be achieved in the short term to improve liveability for residents, and accessibility? In the immediate, there are proven opportunities in waste management, air quality control, park ing services and improved citizen engagement systems. We see customers deploying smart solutions through IoT-network providers that helps connect cities, communities, and indus tries with IoT sensors. These can be used to mon itor the number of people in a particular area, weather conditions and air quality for example. Other companies are leveraging IoT to under stand how full bins are to quickly optimise effi ciency for the collection of rubbish, and keep cities clean for citizens. They are also pioneering a leading edge computer-vision solution to monitor safety, rapidly deploy thermal sensors for employees in essential services, and also bushfire monitoring and live streaming from helicopters.Anothersector we’ve seen quick impact in are areas such as parking, and how parking is used across cities. Parking is a revenue genera tor for cities, and also it is important to ensure there enough carparks available for citizens. City councils across Australia are adopting com puter-vision-based technology companies for deploying smart parking technology that use cloud-based AI and ML to process images which then notify drivers of available parking spaces. It can even perform turn-by-turn navigation to empty spaces. What conversations need to take place for Australia to maximise the potential of its cit ies, and who needs to come to the table?
Discussions on building a foundation in cit ies’ digital capabilities that includes, funding, governance, infrastructure, digital talent and capability are a necessary first step. A digital foundation should align with a cities long term goals and strategy. This enables a city to trans form themselves and take full advantage of digi tal technology for improving: insights from data, citizen engagement and economic development. Discussions around how to fund projects in a way that shares the responsibility across multi ple levels of government, and that also avoids large upfront capital expenditure where it’s not needed, are also important.
Email: business@informpros.com Website: www.informpros.com
Tel: 1300 738 054 Mark Nicholls Partner and Chief Executive, Information Professionals Group National Board member and Deputy Chair, Australian Information Industry Association T: 1300 738 054 E: mark.nicholls@informpros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdnicholls/
Australia’s Nobel Laureates Vol III
State of Our Innovation Nation 2022 and Beyond
Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III
