If you happened to be in a government office once, you would have experienced it. In the fast-paced technological world, you get everything - everything - at your fingertips. But when you need a government document, you still need to remain in a long queue for several hours. How annoying it can be, especially when you are in a hurry. Despite a few innovations in some areas of governance, the public sector is still lagging in technology.
Government sectors continue to rely on obsolete systems and applications merely because they constantly face challenges deploying modern IT infrastructure. But modernising IT has become the need of the hour, and the government can not simply ignore it. Here in this article, let us see some of the top priorities for the government when they go for IT modernisation.
1. Modernising Decades-old Legacy
The first and the foremost challenge before the public sector is to upgrade its ability to change. Convincing and making personnel comfortable about the transformation is the critical first step of implementing an IT modernisation drive. If the organisational resistance to leaving legacy systems continue, then:
- The current limitations will impact better performance.
- Operating and maintaining outdated technology becomes harder.
- Data security risks will increase.
The organisation could overcome this hurdle with meticulous planning, proper resources, and an essential support system.
2. Provides Better Citizen Services
Even a decade before, citizens showed their declining confidence in the federal government in Washington when it came to handling global and domestic problems.
Now there is a drastic change in the way people interact with technology. So they are expecting high-quality digital services from the public sector too.
IT modernisation
- Helps systematic organisation of data,
- Improves online processing of applications that ensures accuracy, consistency, transparency, and traceability,
- Assure satisfaction for the citizen and the employee,
- Equips government units to perform effectively,
- Provide a proper communication channel.
According to experts, it is high time to shift focus and invest more in the new IT infrastructure.
3. Ensure Cyber Security
When IT becomes a massive part of the government, cyber security threats cause constant headaches. Since government data includes citizen information, sensitive documents and official secrets, robust cybersecurity measures are needed to ensure regular data backups to protect data.
- A cyber security programme is inevitable to reduce risk, vulnerabilities, and failures and protect data from malware attacks, phishing, hacking, cracking, and leakage.
- An adaptive security architecture can anticipate security risks and handle them much easier than the more traditional and deficient ‘prevent and detect’ approach.
- A proper cyber security system reduces chances for identity theft and online fraud.
4. Cloud Deployment
Governments worldwide have recognised the potential for cloud computing to transform the way they invest in, deploy and access IT resources.
- Most Government units moved to cloud-based collaboration solutions and quickly experienced significant cost savings.
- Work can be accessed from anywhere and from any device, bringing flexibility and efficiency in collaboration.
- Cloud-based facilities are suitable for public sector units with increasing or varying bandwidth demands.
- Cloud offers greater productivity, enhanced flexibility accessibility, increased availability, better scalability, and collaboration, something they have never experienced before.
5. Automation for efficient service
Citizen centric approach is the need of the hour for every government agency, whether federal or state. Smaller government agencies do not have the freedom or time to invest and experiment with changes, but still, they have to catch up with the requirements and expectations of their citizens.
Without any extra investment, government offices could attain many of the benefits of automation through existing open-source systems. Deploying newer technologies such as 3D printing saves construction costs. The introduction of blockchain technology streamlines processes and increases accountability.
Keeping up with the new trends in technology demands a better understanding of digital transformations happening in other parts of the world. For instance, the Australian government has moved all federal and state agency websites to a centralised digital content management platform called GovCMS.
Benefits include
- Easy access to government services from any corner of the world
- Streamlined and efficient government processes
- Increased accountability
- Citizen data privacy ensured
- Safe and secure payment platforms
- Secure biometric identification.
Conclusion:
Solid strategies, appropriate communication and support from the people and service providers are prerequisites for successful IT modernisation. The government can improve their performance by understanding what they have and where they need to go.
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