The cloud brings unprecedented opportunities to connect public sector agencies – to each other and to the citizens they serve. With the right mix of on-premise, hosted and ‘pure cloud’ solutions can transform public service.
Visiting my son’s school recently, I saw a banner that described the path to success as “lots of little steps every day”. In my last blog post Mobile Government: Transforming Public Service – Before Your First Cup of Coffee I talked about the role new technologies can play in improving public service and accountability, and how many small inputs – little steps - can transform the public sector.
The cloud fits naturally with this “citizen sensor” approach. Public sector systems are often silo-ed and secured. A cloud-based solution designed to facilitate citizen reporting of issues also allows for the quick and easy connection of a portal accessible by citizens and all relevant agencies.
The village of Schaumburg in Illinois, home to the global headquarters of Motorola Solutions, used SAP Jam to create a wiki-based village portal. Every new project creates a new entry, where all stakeholders can assess and share resources transparently.
Three clouds, many opportunities
Public sector organizations share many of the same goals as the private sector – to deliver services in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible, and to make more human and financial resources available for the core mission of the agency.
Public sector bodies can bring the cloud into their processes in different ways to suit their needs. Software-as-a-service applications hosted on the cloud can provide scalability and accessibility across departments, simplifying budgeting, time management, expense and travel processing and many other standardized functions.
However, agencies can also build their own applications and provide access to their third-party consultants on platform-as-a-service or infrastructure-as-a-service systems, with access based on need.
With years or decades of experience in delivering service, subject matter experts bring a level of expertise that no outsourced team can replicate.
For example New South Wales Trade and Investment (NSWTI) in Australia, the state’s leading economic development agency, chose the SAP® Business ByDesign® cloud software-as-a-service solution to manage finance and accounting operations. The agency also deployed SAP ERP HCM Payroll integrated with SAP Business ByDesign.
Develop, test, deploy
Creating a development environment on a hosted platform empowers experts to create applications, with the freedom to iterate, experiment, deploy and test in safe, sandbox environments. Agencies can then distribute systems and updates across the network quickly and comprehensively.
Meanwhile, the maintenance of the platform, and the stability of the deployed solution, can be removed from their responsibilities, increasing the time available to develop value-delivering solutions.
Rapid iteration and deployment provide the “many little steps” towards successful public service. Multiple agencies can also coordinate their activities – their own steps - with each other and the public they serve.
To learn more about how we can help you with your business challenges please have a look at SAP's Solution Explorer for the Public Sector Industry: https://rapid.sap.com/se/#vm?indids=i_pub_sect&lobids=all
