Public sector should up IT

Governments should deploy IT to deliver value to citizens.

This is according to a recent study by Accenture. Its global CIO Agenda annual report sought to understand the challenges of business and how IT has been leveraged to drive performance.

It found there are several characteristics that public sector entities should focus on to achieve the desired outcome, and showed that high-performing public sector organisations are the ones that leverage technology to enable their service delivery.

According to Lee Naik, head of IT strategy at Accenture, “these [characteristics] are: being cost effective, developing agile capabilities, collaborating effectively with the private sector [and] having empowered procurement with clear accountability and seamless intra-agency information sharing.” He also states the public sector should have robust IT securing systems in place.

“As the first step, government leaders must weigh the long-term economic advantages of making strategic public infrastructure investments that will ultimately lower cost and enhance services. Many of these strategic investments relate to leveraging technology to streamline services and produce measurable outcomes.”

The study showed that improving the effectiveness of public services also requires government to develop a deep understanding of citizens' needs and preferences.

“Only then can public organisations design services that deliver improved outcomes in the areas that citizens prioritise,” Naik says. However, he adds that citizens' needs and expectations are not constant; they are shaped by changes in personal circumstances as well as by major political, economic or social changes over time.

In these organisations, says Naik, technology provides a major role in enabling the optimisation and automation of government services to its citizens. “In addition to promoting the industrialisation of government services, technology can be leveraged to provide both government and citizens transparency into the performance of service delivery.”

This not only creates pressure on governments to improve the cost and efficiency of service delivery, but allows citizens and other stakeholders the opportunity to contribute recommendations on how service delivery can be improved.

In this regard, Naik notes, we have seen the global and local adoption of Web 2.0 and other social media by governments as both a performance reporting and a service delivery improvement mechanism.

As to how the public sector can implement the correct IT strategy, Naik asserts that the key to defining a successful IT strategy is the involvement of the business stakeholders in its development.

“IT strategies need to be based on the challenges facing the respective public sector organisation,” he says, “and should enable the creation of tangible value for both the organisation and the citizens or customers that they serve.”

Naik maintains that a compelling strategy is one that realises an IT function that operates as efficiently and effectively as possible, as well as transforming IT from being a back-office function into a value-creating contributor to their organisation.

Some may think this is impossible given SA's political turmoil, however, Naik says this kind of implementation is possible. He says experience demonstrates that a successful transformation journey consists of three stages.

“The immediate first step is to review the current IT portfolio with a view to achieving an immediate cost take out. This may include halting poor performing projects and initiatives that do not create real value for their organisations.”

It is however important to note that IT cost reduction should never be approached with a single objective of reducing IT spend. Cost reduction should focus on increased value extraction from IT through ensuring that business and IT imperatives are aligned, he says.

“Once these savings have been realised, they should be used to optimise current processes and operations even further.”

The final and possibly parallel stage in the journey suggested by Naik is to transform the IT operating models and capabilities to become a strategic partner to the business. “The vision for this final state is that IT should proactively anticipate the business needs and have the ability to scale in capacity to meeting changing business demands.”

As to the sustainability of this kind of IT implementation, Accenture affirms that high performers are much better positioned to take advantage of improved financial climates and weather poor financial situations better.

Naik says: “The characteristics of these high performers include robust IT, security and governance processes, industrialised and transparent procurement capabilities, and having agile capabilities that can deal with unplanned changes to the business environment.”

However, organisations have to overcome several hurdles, including demonstrating the value that IT contributes to business stakeholders that do not have an understanding of technology.

“In addition public sector organisations need to drive out compelling talent management strategies to attract, skill-up and retain a workforce to ensure that IT is able to sustain its service delivery and contribution to the organisation,” adds Naik.

Short-term pain would include moving from the comfort of the status quo and implementing new operating models and governance structures to enable IT-focused service delivery. “This initial investment would set in place the foundation on which IT can transform itself to contribute real and sustainable value to their organisations.”