Paving the Path for Government Digital Transformation via the Cloud
Industry Perspective
Paving the Path for Government Digital Transformation via the Cloud
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Introduction Digital technology has the potential to fundamentally transform the way the public sector operates and delivers services to constituents. Government agencies that are not undergoing a digital transformation risk becoming stale and outdated; but even worse, they will fail to meet the needs of an increasingly digitally savvy citizenry. Consumers and a growing mobile workforce expect the same type of connectivity and customer experience buying a business permit or paying taxes online as they do while shopping on Amazon or streaming content on Netflix. Historically, “government has lagged behind the private sector when it comes to innovation and deployment of new technologies aimed at streamlining business operations and delivering better customer-centric services,” said Kurt Steward, Vice President of Public Sector at Infor, an enterprise software provider and strategic technology partner for more than 90,000 organizations worldwide. So it is more than likely that those agencies–federal, state and local–that are not embarking on a digital transformation journey will be pushed into the digital era by their customers and a younger tech-savvy workforce. Technology is changing rapidly, and the pace of innovation is accelerating along with it. To understand how government can achieve digital transformation via IT modernization and cloud technology, GovLoop partnered with Infor for this industry perspective. In the following pages, we’ll discuss how digital transformation is changing the way government works; how this transformation can be achieved via cloud computing; and gain insights from Steward and his colleague, Wayne Bobby, Vice President, U.S. Federal at Infor.
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Why Digital Transformation Matters to Government Agencies Digital transformation is the transformation of business activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage digital technologies and their impact in a strategic and prioritized way, with present and future shifts in mind. And this transformation is changing the way business applications work for government, said Bobby. As government agencies moved into the new millennium, business applications were transaction-driven. People would put data into information systems and conduct transactions, but it was not always easy getting information out to service a wide range of business partners, constituents, contractors and employees. Information technology departments built huge data warehouses, which integrated subject-oriented, historical data from multiple incompatible systems into a consistent view of the organization. Over time, as data volumes increased, bottlenecks began to develop in these data warehouses, which were built on common relational database management systems that used extract, transform and load (ETL) tools for data access. “Often you were data-rich, but information-poor,” Bobby said. Today, agencies want better value from their enterprise applications. For example, with basic enterprise resource planning applications, they might want to know the fundamental pieces of information they should know about a transaction or a vendor or their budget while the application is processing the information. As a result, business applications are providing more information within the application; not as an afterthought in a data warehouse. “We are starting to see applications that really drive to the mission of the organization,” Bobby said. For instance, Infor has a solution called Care Workloads, an analytical tool that looks at the patient intake into a hospital and answers questions such as, “How many people came into an emergency room or checked into the hospital?” Based on the patient intake, the application will adjust the schedule to make sure the
hospital has enough clinicians, nurses, physicians, staff members and technicians to accommodate the number of patients in the hospital that day or week. It is responding to the needs of the organization based on the patient information in the application. Agencies that don’t start the digital journey to provide their audience these kinds of capabilities risk “being stale, outdated and poor performers,” Bobby said. The federal government budget is increasingly competitive, with different components within an agency vying for a bigger slice of the budget to serve their constituents. Those teams that are best at defining their missions and business results are going to get a bigger slice of the budget pie. “Those organizations that don’t transform themselves are doing a disservice to themselves as well as to the constituents they serve,” Bobby said. Steward echoed that sentiment, noting that 60 to 90 percent of government agencies’ budgets can be eaten up by personnel costs. With as little as 10 percent left, agencies have limited resources to keep pace with technology and maintain the pace of innovation. Plus, many local and state governments lack the pool of talent with the necessary skills to keep up with changes. “With all the different technologies coming out, it becomes tough for cities, counties and federal agencies to maintain these systems they are deploying,” Steward said. Given these factors, it’s more important than ever that government turn to digital transformation to keep pace with innovation.
Paving the Path for Government Digital Transformation via the Cloud
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“With all the different technologies coming out, it becomes tough for cities, counties and federal agencies to maintain these systems they are deploying,” Kurt Steward Vice President of Public Sector at Infor
Taking the First Steps to Digital Transformation To properly take advantage of this transformational moment, agencies have to move fast. First, managers should start with a digital strategy. As part of that plan, on the technology side, moving to the cloud is essential. At the federal level, IT modernization initiatives pave the way for more effective planning and the implementation and use of cloud technologies and services. Tony Scott, the former Federal Chief Information Officer, in 2016 pointed out that the federal government spends roughly 80 percent of its $80 billion annual IT budget on maintaining legacy systems, many of which are decades old. President Donald Trump’s administration backs efforts to update legacy government technology, supporting the creation of the Technology Modernization Fund to replace and retire antiquated IT. The administration’s fiscal 2018 budget includes $228 million for a fund that agencies could use to move to more modern infrastructure, such as the cloud and shared services. The money would be repaid in future years from the savings gathered by using more efficient technology.
Government managers should build their digital transformation strategies on key performance indicators that track performance against their agencies’ business objectives, Bobby said. Some indicators can be as straightforward as the number of clicks a user must go through to complete an online task, or the time it takes staff to complete incoming requests. Managers should draw those lines in the sand that show where their agencies are in terms of the state of their current IT systems, being honest about how many are transaction-oriented, Bobby explained. “They need to consider issues such as: What does it cost to hire employees to process a contract or purchase order? What steps are needed to achieve the business results their agency is striving for? When they get analytical that way, those are the organizations driving the business results we ought to be seeing,” Bobby said.
The Office of Management and Budget requires federal agencies to submit IT modernization plans, which describe their present state of affairs and future plans. Some of those plans will forecast out 10 years in the future, said Bobby, noting that now “we are forcing people to plan their way out of this rut as well as hold people accountable.”
“What does it cost to hire employees to process a contract or purchase order? What steps are needed to achieve the business results their agency is striving for? When they get analytical that way, those are the organizations driving the business results we ought to be seeing,” Wayne Bobby Vice President of U.S. Federal at Infor
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The Cloud: The Delivery Platform for Digital Transformation Cloud technology is critical for the advancement of digital transformation. “Without the cloud agencies cannot effectively collect data, manage data and build applications that engage the American public, nor surface the insights needed to improve delivery of public services,” according to a report by Govini, a big data and analytics firm. “Building digital operating models starts with cloud or other methods of virtualization such as containerization. These modern models, already well-established in the private sector, provide the flexibility necessary for agile development of databases and integrated data visualization applications. Such applications engage end-users and reveal substantial opportunities for improving delivery of public service and refining operations,” the Govini report states. The momentum for federal cloud investment continues to grow, according to the Govini report, which notes, “Cloud spending increased by 40.8 percent to $2.8 billion in FY16, compared to the average of the previous five years.” The current operational and maintenance costs of agencies are overwhelming, and the way to cut those costs is a move to cloud infrastructures, a type of internet-based computing that provides shared computer processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand, Bobby noted. Disconnected best-of-breed IT solutions deployed in silos have become complex and costly to maintain. They require updates, patching and customization. Cloud computing shifts this paradigm. By deploying connected systems or moving applications into commercial cloud infrastructures such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft or facilities run by government contractors, government agencies have been able to achieve greater levels of agility, flexibility and affordability. Viewing applications and systems as part of a larger eco-system helps agencies use technology to drive constituent and employee engagement and operational efficiency.
Email systems and productivity applications were among the first systems to be moved to the cloud as agencies adopted cloud-based services such as Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365. Other agencies used commercial infrastructure-as-a-service cloud solutions provided by companies such as AWS, where they are able to get servers, storage and other computing resources on demand. Now agencies are moving to the next level, migrating core business and mission-critical applications to the cloud, Bobby said. Organization culture is one of the main challenges agency managers have to overcome. Often agency division managers want to hold onto their servers or applications because they don’t want to lose control, or fear they will be less secure in the cloud. “I am working with an organization where the IT team is ready to move to the cloud, but the human resource director or financial controller does not want to move their business applications to the cloud,” Bobby said. Industry must show agency managers the proof points that will articulate the value of making that transition to the cloud. Agency managers need to understand that they will still have security–increased levels of security, in fact–and still have control of their assets.
Cloud spending increased by 40.8 percent to $2.8 billion in FY16, compared to the average of the previous five years.
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Some Proof Points of the Value of Moving to the Cloud:
Achieving Security in the Cloud via FedRAMP
Better management of multiple, complex software licenses. Licenses and annual maintenance fees are part of the cloud subscription. The software-as-a-service cloud model is sometimes referred to as “on-demand software” and is usually priced on a pay-per-use basis or using a subscription fee.
Government agencies’ comfort level with cloud solutions and services continues to grow as cloud providers strengthen security controls to protect customers’ critical assets. Moreover, the federal government established the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. This approach uses a “do once, use many times” framework that saves an estimated 30 to 40 percent of government costs, as well as time and staff required to conduct redundant agency security assessments, according to FedRAMP officials.
Professional engineers keep your applications in the cloud up to date with the latest patches, fixes or software updates on a regular basis. So your agency won’t fall four or five releases behind because your IT department can’t catch up for various reasons.
Reduced software customization. Customization increases the complexity and risk of an implementation, while at the same time making it potentially more difficult to upgrade software in the future.
The security assessment process uses a standardized set of requirements in accordance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), using a baseline set of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 controls to grant security authorizations. FedRAMP is necessary because both agencies and cloud providers have baselines to follow, and clear measurable responsibilities, Bobby said. State and local government agencies are also asking for FedRAMP compliance when soliciting proposals for services from cloud providers.
Infor and the Cloud Cloud services come with a disaster-recovery solution and 24/7 monitoring of your applications with professionals who have some of the best tools to prevent downtime. “You are going to get a service-level agreement so you know you will get 99.999 percent uptime. If you don’t, you don’t have to pay,” Bobby said.
Better security compliance. Often, after agencies have moved applications to the cloud, they’ve found the cloud environment more secure and safer than if their applications were hosted and monitored on premise.
Infor offers the only cloud-based solution with complete end-to-end functionality built specifically for the financial, operational and regulatory needs of public agencies. The Infor CloudSuite™ Public Sector is a ready-to-run solution set built specifically to meet the needs of public entities that’s delivered in the cloud, giving agencies greater agency-wide agility, faster deployment and response, and hassle-free ownership that eliminates the need to maintain hardware, upgrades or fixes. Infor’s industry-specific solutions are compliant with the regulations and guidelines that concern your agency. Plus, by using this solution, agencies can reduce total cost of ownership and maximize limited IT resources.
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Conclusion Managers from all levels of government–federal, state and local–who want to move their agencies into the digital era must have the will power to step out and do it. It is not always easy. “You can’t expect government overnight to become like Amazon. It takes steps. Obviously, technology is the foundation,” Steward said. The aim is to select the types of solutions that give you more contextual awareness within your applications so you can take action and make quick decisions. Clearly, constituents and an increasingly mobile workforce want access to high-quality digital government information and services anywhere, anytime, on any device. Government agencies must adjust to this new digital world. Federal efforts to modernize agencies’ information technology infrastructures by moving to cloud technology and shared services pave the way for this coming digital transformation.
About Infor
About GovLoop
Infor builds beautiful business applications with last mile functionality and scientific insights for select industries delivered as a cloud service, on premises, or both. With 15,000 employees and over 90,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor is a leading provider of software applications. Infor delivers a comprehensive suite of integrated, industry-specific solutions, including purpose-built for the public sector. Infor solutions increase operational efficiency, citizen satisfaction, government accountability, and process transparency and are transforming how governments provide services to citizens.
GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We aim to inspire public-sector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 250,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to connect and improve government.
To learn more visit: infor.com/industries/publicsector.
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Paving the Path for Government Digital Transformation via the Cloud
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