For state and local IT departments, which already have their hands full, the prospect of digital transformation can be daunting even in the best of times. For most agencies, which are dealing with a lack of in-house skills, tight budgets and change-resistant culture, these are challenging times.
But in an increasingly cloud-based world, with constituents conditioned by private sector apps to expect seamless online and mobile experiences, digital transformation has become a top priority for state and local governments, second only to cybersecurity. Which is to say, these agencies must somehow deliver high-quality digital services without compromising on security. Again, a daunting task.
Fortunately, there is a way over those hurdles. Agencies that need help with their digital transformations can find it in as-a-service offerings, which can provide the skill sets and services they need within a sustainable, pay-as-you-go model. Today, there are emerging as-a-service solutions that incorporate advanced technologies into an interoperable framework that allows agencies to take a holistic approach to modernizing their systems, enabling the transformation they need and the user experiences people want.
The Challenge: Strained Resources
Transitioning to the cloud significantly changes how agencies operate. Traditionally, agencies have taken a hub-and-spoke approach to delivering IT services, with the data center as the hub. Today, agencies are pushing compute resources into the cloud and to the edge. It works, but it’s a lot to take on.
State, county, and local governments are being asked to take on an enormous amount of work with digital transformation. They’re also being asked to keep systems constantly available, stable, and secure, all while driving better citizen experiences. This leads to several challenges governments experience:
The resources gap: Managing a distributed, cloud-based architecture requires expertise and tools that in-house IT teams may not have. It requires automation, visibility, continuous monitoring, analysis, and the ability to manage a hybrid mix of cloud and legacy systems.
Security: Digital transformation automatically expands agencies’ attack surfaces, which threat actors have been very willing to exploit by shifting their tactics. In 2021, 62% of cyberattacks did not include malware, for example, and instead focused on credential-based attacks. Agencies need a new approach to security, built on a zero-trust strategy of continual authorization of network identities—both human and non-human— throughout the environment.
Legacy systems: Maintaining older systems such as mainframes create significant security vulnerabilities for agencies.
The Solution: Experience-as-a-Service
An as-a-service approach takes a few constraints out of the picture, such as the need to buy resources or hire people with the right skills. The most beneficial step agencies can take is adopting an Experience-as-a-Service approach—a holistic program for transformation that can transform the technology foundations of the enterprise while improving delivery of core missions.
With Experience-as-a-Service, agencies can focus on the strategic aspects of their missions while having a trusted partner to manage the technology side to deliver outcomes.
This approach not only solves manpower and resource challenges with regard to current processes, but it also allows agencies to add advanced tools suited to the challenges of a distributed environment that improve performance and the customer experience. Here are four ways Experience-as-a-Service is driving digital transformation in government:
RPA: Robotic process automation increases efficiency with bots that emulate human interactions with digital systems. One example is in using RPA for benefits applications, enabling faster deployment with reduced infrastructure costs and without licensing or hosting costs.
Cyber resiliency: Not all cybersecurity tools are built with resiliency in mind. An as-a-service approach can perform customized assessments to find any gaps in resiliency, such as the need for backup capabilities to help mitigate a ransomware attack. It also provides the flexibility to adjust to changes such as the sudden surge of remote work during the pandemic.
Data center modernization: An as-a-service approach can simplify modernization. Instead of modernizing the infrastructure and re-architecting applications to work within it, you can modernize any legacy application to work within its environment.
AI: An emerging technology, artificial intelligence-as-a-service would expand on RPA by adding cognitive capabilities and allow agencies to test AI services without the risk of a large initial investment.
The Road to Digital Transformation
Digital transformation presents significant technology and cultural challenges for agencies, which must manage services and security in a fast-growing and complex cloud environment, and do it with limited budgets and resources. But it also presents great opportunities for improving the quality of services.
The as-a-service model provides a clear path to achieving those goals, providing expertise and technology while saving time and expense. It can ease the burden of having to fill the IT skills gap, while freeing employees to focus on mission-critical tasks. A new breed of advanced as-a-service solutions also provide an affordable way to take the next steps in improving operations, such as applying AI and advanced analytics. Lastly, the pay-as-you-go approach also prevents agencies from getting locked into specific solutions.
This blog is an excerpt from a Center for Digital Government Issue Brief, "Resilience-as-a-Service: A holistic approach for ensuring continuity of government." You can read the full issue brief here.
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