How can SAP and the cloud help Government’s with their channel shift to web, social and mobile? Part 1

[PaulOSullivan]

For Governments the channel shift is well underway to mobile, social and web.

Channels are the means by which Government interact with, and provide services to their citizens.  They can do this via phone, face to face, web, mobile, social media, TV, letter and many more.

Not that long ago voice and face to face were the primary channels for citizens to interact with their government, now you see Web, Mobile and Social channels growing rapidly at the expense of the more traditional channels.  I like the double meaning of “expense” here, as these channels are very expensive to maintain.  While reducing cost is important it is not the only reason for the channel shift.  Citizens are also demanding better and more convenient service utilizing these newer channels so it is a win-win for everyone. 

In some parts of the world mobile is already the primary interface for citizens to access the Web, while for many citizens globally mobile access is the only method that citizens have for accessing the Web.  So mobile and the web are not nice to have they are must have. 

This is a tremendous challenge to governments. Governments offer hundreds of services to their citizens and they need to manage and run multiple front and back office systems to support and provide all these services.  Then you throw in big data and unstructured content and it gets even more complicated
for governments.  Supporting all this on all these channels and different devices, it’s enough to make one’s head spin.

So how will government support these new channels while also simplifying their operations and lowering total cost of ownership?  I see this as a
tremendous opportunity for Governments to simplify, consolidate and rationalize their IT landscape while increasing their citizen satisfaction and reducing
costs.  Now Governments can get best in class solutions for mobility, multi-channel citizen services, collaboration and more all from a single vendor.

In the coming weeks I will write blogs on the different ways in which SAP can help Governments with their channel shift using its solutions, many of them cloud based.  I will paint a vision on how SAP can provide integrated holistic solutions for that will support Governments on their channel shift journey.

We will talk about SAP NetWeaver Cloud Portal and how it can be used by Governments as a low TCO cloud based portal offering with mobile consumption options.

http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-portal/cloud

We will talk about how SAP Mobile Portal will enable Governments to build a single Portal that can be consumed on different devices.  This will enable them to accelerate productivity and collaboration by extending the reach of their portal content, applications, and documents to employees and citizens – on multiple mobile devices, anywhere. 

http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-portal/cloud

We will also talk about Service on Demand which is a cloud based customer service platform from SAP.

http://www54.sap.com/solutions/tech/cloud/software/customer-service-ondemand/index.html

We will talk about how SAP Social on Demand which will enable governments to deliver a great citizen experience by listening to and engaging with their citizens on social media channels.  Then collaborate to resolve issues efficiently and effectively. 

http://www54.sap.com/solutions/tech/cloud/software/social-customer-engagement-on-demand/index.html

And we will discuss internal and external collaboration using SAP Enterprise Workspace and Jam.

http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-portal/collaboration-and-social

http://www54.sap.com/solutions/tech/cloud/software/overview/collaboration.html

I look forward on sharing and exploring these exciting topics with you and I welcome your feedback on how Governments can best service and support their citizens.