Wayne Bobby is the vice president of Federal Government Solutions for Infor.
In the face of shrinking budgets, growing demands from citizens and an aging IT infrastructure, the U. S. government has been asking this crucial question: What is the best way to deliver IT at the federal level to achieve maximum value at minimum cost?
To compel this answer, and improve the use and benefits derived from IT at federal agencies, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) was created. While this act has not yet been passed in Washington, the ongoing debate about using “smarter” technology and seeing a greater return has been the genesis for a new way of thinking about IT. Technology is something that can help the government improve service to citizens, protect critical data, and most importantly, generate cost savings.
Migration to the cloud
The federal government has undertaken three different initiatives to help improve its use of technology, with the first being a migration to cloud. In the past, decision-makers have been wary of cloud-based technologies because of potential security risks, which are particularly important when handling sensitive government data. However, as software vendors have continued to eradicate these risks by developing more in-depth best practices for security, the benefits of software as a service (SaaS) have begun to outweigh the risks for federal agencies.
Among the advantages, implementing an application in the cloud is considerably faster and more cost-effective for public organizations. It minimizes upfront costs by eliminating the need to purchase on-site hardware and enables a more predictable total cost of ownership through subscription-based pricing options. This helps generate a speedy return on investment (ROI) and saves money for the government in the long run. The cloud also helps agencies improve disaster readiness by housing the data off-premise, so unpredictable incidents, such as a natural disaster, will not impact the accessibility or security of information.
One example of this is the city of San Francisco. While they are not a federal agency, their use of cloud technology is an excellent testimony to its potential efficacy. The city had elected to deploy its Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) application in a cloud environment to reduce IT costs and maintain critical system availability during and after an emergency. The IT department is no longer responsible for configuration, upgrades or storage, allowing the city to manage the application without hiring additional employees or supplementary hardware. Leaders at the federal level should recognize the possible impact of similar deployments across multiple government-run agencies.
Sharing services and technology
In addition to cloud migration, federal decision-makers have also created a shared services initiative to help optimize technology use. Many agencies are being consolidated to provide services in a more cost-effective way. For example, the Treasury Department now utilizes a financial services center in West Virginia, and the Department of Agriculture manages its financial and human resources functions from New Orleans. Even though they are outside the capital, these agencies have the ability to perform the same, if not more, tasks using fewer federal resources.
Consolidating technology in much the same way is helping the government to facilitate enhanced collaboration between agencies. At these new shared services centers, the government is building an integrated technology environment that provides greater visibility into data for better, faster decision-making. By eliminating information silos and opening up lines of communication, these centers can see how their actions impact other areas of government, and vice versa.
These shared services organizations now have the ability to think beyond core enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. They are beginning to examine a broader footprint of “off-the-shelf” software that can provide services for program areas of government. This includes solutions to support health care delivery, cybersecurity and other critical areas. With an eye toward the future workforce, the federal government has shown a growing interest in succession planning, as well as talent and learning management and mobile platforms. And, given the increased pressures around audit-readiness, there has been an increased level of attention around user access and internal controls monitoring of transactions that are processed daily.
Talent science
The third (and most recent) way in which the federal government is working to maximize the value of technology, while minimizing costs, is through talent science — the practice of leveraging behavioral and performance data to evaluate job candidates based on their compatibility with an organization and likeliness of success. It allows organizations to better match the right person with the right position by analyzing a candidate’s behavioral traits and comparing it against job-related performance data that has been collected separately from identified high-performing current employees.
In terms of government positions, identifying the best candidate for a job is particularly challenging because of the high number of specialty positions. Talent science can help the government to evaluate applicants using their “behavioral DNA,” which is uniquely based on the traits and characteristics they display. By weeding out potential hires without the necessary attributes before the interview process even begins, federal agencies can protect their onboarding investment by increasing the likelihood that their selection will be successful in the position.
A continuous process
The movement to improve government operations using technology, embodied by FITARA, is an ongoing process. Examining how IT is acquired and used can help federal organizations to save both time and money — resources that will continue to prove more precious as the future of our government unfolds.
Wayne Bobby is the vice president of Federal Government Solutions for Infor.
