What does the cloud mean for government?
What does the cloud mean for government?
In a word, opportunity. With the downturn in the economy of recent years, citizens expect a streamlined, efficient and modern government to interact with. In response, governments are forced to consider how to modernize systems with strained resources. The cloud presents another, typically cost-effective alternative to traditional technology implementations.
Why is the timing right for government to embrace the cloud?
Modernizing technology in any significant way requires governments to spend money. As we see government reduce its resources, the technology investments it makes need to be able to contract, and eventually expand, with changing business needs. As we see the economy recover, good administrators should ask whether services will be delivered the same way they were prior to the cuts, or should we take advantage of this opportunity to take a fresh look at different models? The cloud offers that opportunity to move resources currently focused on routine or behind-the-scenes technology support to a more direct citizen-focused service-delivery model.
What rationale do you use to justify the move?
The justification for the cloud should really be no different than any typical technology implementation. For example, you should consider typical requirements such as:
1. Security/privacy — Due diligence certainly must be taken concerning employee and citizen personally identifiable information (PII) data, but large companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on their infrastructure with dedicated security personnel. Large cloud service providers have a lot to lose should breach of security become an issue.
2. Functionality — The maturity of the cloud over the last several years has meant that the majority of business needs now can be addressed by cloud solutions. For example, many cloud providers now have government-specific options to address their unique requirements.
3. Cost — Cloud vendors make money by providing a commodity service leveraged over a large base of customers. At the onset, moving to the cloud may seem expensive or labor intensive, but if you consider the total cost of ownership, all elements of a particular service delivery area, cloud economics tend to offer lower costs and streamlined operations for a particular outcome.
What obstacles do you see for traditional government technology implementations moving to the cloud, and what are some risk-mitigation strategies?
In these resource-constrained times for government, the sheer inertia to make the transition to a cloud-based solution may be an obstacle. Moving government business models to the cloud frequently requires significant business process re-engineering, and that often requires significant staff time in an era where most staff members are wearing multiple hats.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges will be change management. Typical government agencies have many silo’ed service delivery models, which will require end-users, technical staff and management to all understand the benefits and risks to gain adoption.
To deal with many of those issues, organizations need to focus on outcomes rather than the process to accomplish service delivery. Have a clear communication plan for the opportunity, goals and costs associated with making the investment to move to the cloud. Consider the move to the cloud a capital investment in lowering on-going operating expenses. The transition and associated business process re-engineering and training should be considered part of that expense. Government agencies need to consider what they are spending currently on a particular service delivery area when comparing costs of moving to the cloud, including such items as hardware, software, licensing, staff, etc.
