Digital transformation is essential to advance the mission of government.
Technology has become an omnipresent force in the world and when capitalised on, it can create more efficient, transparent, and productive governments.
Industry has always been transformed by technology. From the steam revolution to electricity and now digital business, human invention continually revolutionises how governments can better engage with citizens, transform their services, overhaul and optimise operations or empower their workforce.
Microsoft believes that driving government digital transformation will build economic growth, broaden social inclusion, enable good governance, and achieve better citizen outcomes.
There four major areas that provide the greatest potential for digital transformation for governments.
- Engaging citizens
- Empowering employees
- Optimising government operations
- Transforming services
As governments look to leave behind old processes, disparate systems, and paper-based methods, they can move to a digital future for government models and services. The need for improved data security increases as governments transform to drive value from increasing volumes of data and enable citizen engagement models. Leaders are now able to overcome challenges by delivering exceptional government to citizens through digital transformation. Digital transformation will enable governments to better serve and protect citizens and build more secure, productive nations by connecting people, systems, and information resulting in more impactful outcomes.
The Microsoft approach enables digital transformation of government with an integrated, flexible, and trustworthy approach that offers a choice of public, private and hybrid cloud services with a commitment to trust and compliance. We believe in empowering government digital transformation so countries can build economic growth, broaden social inclusion, drive good governance, and achieve better outcomes for their citizens.
Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, IoT or machine learning are a part of that and will help governments deliver better, more efficient services—often at a reduced cost.
An empowered workforce:
Modern, cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools exploits mobility, social networking, and device trends to help governments better connect their employees and information across boundaries – enabling remote and online collaboration and allowing citizens greater access to services and interaction with officials.
By integrating collaboration tools with CRM solutions, government agencies can streamline case management and deliver world-class enterprise case resolution, by customising and automating rules, event triggers and work flows based on entitlements and SLA’s.
In the future, governments will be able to leverage data to create insights and build more targeted services. They will gain new predictive capabilities that will help them make more informed decisions. And through the use of technology they will empower their employees, irrespective of location.
Operating optimally:
It’s not hyperbolic to say that data is the world’s new emerging currency. Government leaders and workers using smart devices are connected – allowing them to access trusted information quickly and securely, engage with colleagues seamlessly, and easily collaborate on projects. This helps drive confident, data driven decisions that benefit citizens.
Transparency in government, while often sought after can be difficult to ensure. New technology can help manage transparency and access to information, both internally and externally in order to build public trust.
Today, government agencies can leverage online, real-time video conferencing technology to engage in virtual town halls or meetings with citizens. This increases access to and participation in government for constituents – leading to increased credibility and trust of an agency or government.
Today’s economic climate is placing mounting pressure on governments to reduce spending, while still providing more and better services. Balancing increasing needs with tightened budgets poses immense challenges; however, we’re seeing more and more organisations make amazing strides towards achieving more, and new, with less. Leaders are aware of emerging trends in today’s operational environment including the power mobile technology – particularly in Africa.
Transforming services:
Government departments are continually seeking ways to meet complex demands—and do new with less. Technologies like cloud, AI, IoT, mixed reality and other new technologies enable government departments to re-invent their operations, drive effective service delivery and ultimately build more functional societies.
Various technologies continue to provide government with opportunities to fulfill their mission and at the same time pose disruptive ‘threats’ to the current way society and economy are being run, requiring agility in adapting to the changes.
Data—both
open and confidential—also allows public safety organisations to share insights and intelligence to better protect citizens. As a hyper-scale cloud provider, we understand big data as few others can. Microsoft has invested in the technologies necessary to help you both capture the data you need, but also the tools to easily work with that data to give you the insights you need to act.In June we announced the establishing of two hyper-scale data centres, in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the first of their kind in Africa. They are scheduled to go online in 2018.
Cybersecurity is a pervasive challenge involving government, commercial, and private stakeholders. The challenge is escalating as governments at every scale increasingly rely on information technologies as part of their critical infrastructure. The demands to data have shifted from storage to hyper-scale storage, cybersecurity and now policing of data. That is why we set up our digital crimes unit, which is dedicated to policing cybersecurity hotspots making sure that clients are protected and can operate in those hotspots. For government this means allaying fears of cyberattacks and leaks.
Finally, the Internet of Things (IoT) can help governments connect infrastructures to better regulate traffic, make emergency systems more efficient, and reduce police and emergency response times. Microsoft gives you access to a comprehensive portfolio of products, services, and solutions to make the most of your IoT opportunities across devices, cloud, analytics, and backend systems. We make it possible for you to bring IoT to any device and any platform so you can use your existing infrastructure and have a flexible and scalable solution that adapts to your needs and processes.
As more governments embrace digital transformation they must do so with a sound strategy and an understanding of the available technology in place. The end game is a more efficient government which serves the public impeccably and creates an environment in which employees can truly make a difference.
