Gartner: Top 10 technology trends for Governments
Government organisations should focus on new service models for digital Government, research by Gartner shows. According to the global research and consulting firm, public sector executives should consider 10 strategic technology trends.
In a recently released report by Gartner, an information technology research and consulting firm, the authors highlights that Government spending on technology products and services is forecasted to grow to $475.5 billion by 2019. With the importance of tech in facilitating smoother operations on the rise, so too comes the need to make clear-cut strategic decisions, says Gartner.
To support Government executives with planning the IT roadmap of their organisation, the authors present an overview of the top 10 most important strategic technologies for Governments in 2015. “These strategic technology trends have substantial disruptive potential that is just beginning to materialise and will reach an inflection point within the next three to five years,” explains Rick Howard, Research Director at Gartner. “Public sector CIOs can capitalise on the value of these trends by first determining how they will impact government programme operations or service delivery models, and then by building the organisational capabilities and capacity needed to support them.”
Consultancy.uk provides a brief summary of the 10 strategic technologies:
Digital Workplace
As the future workforce will be a digitally literate one, CIOs and IT leaders should focus on building a social, mobile, accessible and information-driven work environment.
Multichannel Citizen Engagement
Government organisations should focus their efforts on multi-channel citizen engagement, with connected, consistent, convenient, collaborative, customised, clear and transparent interactions. To do so, policymakers and CIOs must combine traditional marketing tools with new approaches.
Open Any Data
According to Gartner, as open data is not free, the value of the data must become more tangible to Governments in terms of how it supports economic development, national productivity or commercial ventures.
Citizen e-ID
For citizen electronic identification (e-ID), which refers to a set of processes and technologies managed by governments to provide a trusted domain for how public services will be accessed by citizens, to be successful, CIOs must ensure that personal privacy and data confidentiality requirements are met.
Edge Analytics
Gartner states that the capabilities of edge analytics are particularly relevant as Government CIOs are designing new mobile services that are augmented by situational context and real-time interactions. According to the firm, edge analytics have three key characteristics: they are advanced, pervasive and invisible; as such they work on the background, constantly gathering information.
Scalable Interoperability
Scalable interoperability, especially important as Government agencies are increasingly relying on data exchange with external partners to optimise service delivery networks and business functions, offers Government CIOs “an incremental, ‘just enough’ approach to architecture and standards to deliver ‘soon enough’ value.”
Digital Government Platforms
Digital government platforms will take away the need for citizens to navigate among various agencies and programmes through vertical, first generation e-government Web portals in order to locate the services they seek. These platforms use a service-oriented architecture design to enable the use of enterprise services across multiple domains, systems and processes.
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to the network of physical objects that contains embedded technology to communicate, monitor, sense or interact with multiple environments, enables the digital transformation of Government service strategies. Gartner stresses that Government CIOs need to evaluate how the intelligent objects and equipment can be combined with traditional Internet and IT systems to support innovations.
Web-Scale IT
Web-scale IT, which refers to a system-oriented architecture of computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT organisation, will enable Governments to develop and deliver Web-based IT services that leverage agile, lean and continuous delivery principles.
Hybrid Cloud (and IT)
A hybrid IT model will offer Government organisations a new model that allows its IT departments to combine on-premises infrastructure or internal private cloud with external cloud-based environments (community, public or hybrid).
