Don’t let the buzzwords blind you, Digital Transformation is critical to public sector IT
Acronyms and buzzwords have always been a part of our lives in the IT industry, whether you’ve been around for a while like me, or you’re new to enterprise computing. You’d be a debacle in the datacentre if you couldn’t tell your RDBS from your MFLOPS, and development disaster if you didn’t understand JSON and DevOps.
But it’s not just technical terms. I speak to IT leaders every day and what’s striking is how many of the techies I knew from yesteryear are now talking to me in business jargon, things like: change management, business innovation and Agile IT.
There is nothing wrong with these phrases or concepts; in fact, you’d struggle to survive in today’s IT market if you didn’t understand them, if not use them. But you’re also going to fall flat on your face if you don’t look beyond the jargon, particularly with something like Digital Transformation.
Digital Transformation is partly about the technology you deploy. And that means the IT Director can put a stake in the ground and drive real innovation by paring back legacy systems and providing employees with the tools they need to increase productivity. At the same time, successfully navigating digital disruption is down to your approach, skills and initiative as a leader.
What’s more, it takes a specific skillset build a progressive culture in the public sector, which has always had a reputation for being risk averse. Change always has to be fully qualified, with the case against incumbent technology and the arguments for selecting an alternative both being detailed and robust. But you can’t argue with that, and it’s particularly important during Digital Transformation where there’s a startup solution for every perceived problem.
That said, there are many things public sector organisations can learn from private enterprises in order to gain efficiencies and competitive edge from emerging technologies like cloud collaboration, social computing, analytics and mobile apps.
Today’s IT Director is in a better position than ever before to understand and influence business strategy, and use technology to impact the business.
Among the things that private businesses have learnt is that good, strategic leadership is a requirement now. That means the IT Director has to respond to the digital challenge right across organisational departments, and beyond — and not just in IT.
One thing that’s become apparent to me over the past five years is that the role of the IT Director has moved on from just provisioning and servicing IT systems. It involves harnessing technology to affect real change in the way people work and the way the organisation operates and interacts with citizens, service users and partners. We’ve seen this at a number of local authorities who can shift resources from ‘keeping the lights on’ to delivering new employee-focused services.
Public sector IT leaders — in health, education, law enforcement, governmental organisation — need to be less conservative in their view of technology and IT suppliers, and more willing to try something new. It’s possible to gain an advantage immediately with today’s cloud-based collaboration, communication or content sharing platforms, which can quickly prove ROI or productivity gains.
You need to move to more flexible and interoperable platforms, and away from monolithic applications operated by slow-moving or unresponsive suppliers. With cloud, the industry has shifted away from annual software updates, with apps benefiting from continual and iterative changes and improvements; with software being rolled out in days rather than months, and scaled up quickly to thousands of users.
Transformation also comes by testing and piloting applications with cross-departmental teams, or building highly interactive peer groups who can feed back quickly, and communicate the functions they need to make their jobs easier, so they can be reflected in the tools you offer.
With this in mind, innovation based on collaboration can be a quick win for the IT Director. You can transform the way your business operates by installing things like cloud-based collaboration to cut down on emails and telephone ping-pong, and make decisions faster by connecting your key stakeholders.
And that’s just the start. You’re bound to find a rich feast of innovation for yourself and for your organisation as soon as you start putting collaboration at the heart of your business strategy.
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