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Digital Services: The New Focal Point of State and Local Governments 

Typically state and local governments are slow to adapt to technological innovations, but the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a drastic change to this. In fact, state and local self-governments are now at the forefront pushing for digitalizing citizen services where possible. They are pushing for low code/no-code technology integrations to accelerate project timelines and are keen on security measures to protect from any cyber security attacks.

Government agencies are now pursuing project timelines and developments in civic infrastructure projects, healthcare, education, public utilities sectors through cloud-based offerings. GaaP (Government as a Platform) is now a reverberating theme. Travel ban during the pandemic increased the need for online services.

Chatbots and voice bots have been one of the main integrations as per a survey conducted by Gartner1. Automating responses to routine queries over digital channels helped reduce response time. With the automation of these services, government agencies are looking to further their use of digital services to help streamline internal processes.

Security: With the increase in digital technology usage, security has also come to the forefront. Systems need to be upgraded and secured to prevent ransomware and malware attacks.

No-code/Low-code Technology

While bumping up the citizen services through innovative digital technology means, state and local agencies are looking to reduce the time to market through low-code/no-code technology solutions.

While the state and local government agencies were slow on the digital services uptake, they still prefer a pick-and-drop approach to the technology deployment strategies. Previously the need for custom development was a detractor but now they are willing to go that extra mile for that low-code/no-code option. This allows the agencies’ non-technical architects the ability to work on these applications.

Cloud Adoption 

Cloud services are gaining popularity due to the ability to handle massive data and iterative processes rapidly resulting in the rapid deployment of citizen-facing applications. Other digital services on the up are Digital ID Initiatives, Robotic Process Automation(RPA).

Governments are using technology through GaaP(Government as a Platform) to provide public services using APIs, and other digital technology components to build citizen-centric services.

Source:

[1] https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/chatbots-will-appeal-to-modern-workers

[2] https://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/State-and-local-government-technology-revs-digital-services