Local governments more tech-forward than federal counterparts

When asked to evaluate their digital strategy efforts, state and local government leaders felt their agencies were doing better than their federal counterparts.

According to a new report released by Acquia, these “digital strategies” focus on four key aspects of governance. Information-centric strategies focus on digitally managing and sharing documents; customer-centric strategies face the public in the form of websites, mobile aps and the dissemination of raw data; shared platform strategies help agency work together more efficiently; and security and privacy strategies ensure digital services are safe. 

The report found 35 percent of state and local government respondents said they were focusing mostly on information-centric solutions, while 27 percent said they were focusing on security and privacy; 23 percent of respondents said they were making the most progress towards Customer Centric solutions while 14 percent said they are focusing on platform sharing.


On average, federal leaders gave their agencies’ efforts to adapt new digital strategies a “C+” grade, while state and local leaders gave their departments a “B+,” according to the report.

Although the performance was satisfactory overall, many state and local leaders still reported they faced challenges in executing digital government strategies. The report found these factors include:



• Limited budgets
• Lack of skills

• Limitations of legacy systems

• Cultural resistance
• Unclear long-term vision

• Complex procurement processes

• Executive buy in

• Inability to measure return on investment

To combat these factors, the study's authors recommend state and local governments educate their IT staffs on how mobile-friendly and cloud-based applications security and efficiency, and how legacy systems and data can be successfully integrated into cloud-based infrastructure. 

To learn more, download the full report here.

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