For the most part, federal agencies are still not ready to embrace disruptive and emerging technologies to support digital transformations, according to Deloitte Report “GovTech Trends 2023”. The Professional Services Network’s annual report highlights technology trends likely to cause disruption over the next 18-24 months and assesses government readiness for adoption.
In many directions, Deloitte has rated the federal government at the lower end of its readiness measure, although the agencies did well on some key technologies. This is due in part to the unique challenges that government organizations face.
“The large share of government IT budgets is allocated to operations and maintenance,” says Scott Buchholz, chief technology officer for Deloitte’s government and public services practice. This often makes it difficult to find Resources needed for improvements It would actually save costs and improve future budgets. In general, commercial IT organizations of similar size spend much less on operations and maintenance.”
What tech trends are on the horizon, and how can agencies prepare for them? The report identifies where improvements are needed and how to make them.
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Agencies are getting left behind on the immersive internet
Deloitte has identified “immersive virtual experiences” as a technology trend, referring to the move toward more experiences in Virtual Reality (VR), mixed reality, and augmented reality, creating ways for people to connect with each other in digital worlds. Deloitte gave the government a score of 1 for willingness to adopt such technologies. (The grading scale runs from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest score.)
Agencies may not be in a position to adoption of these technologies, but there are opportunities to support components and staff. The report provides examples: Virtual office visits can allow constituents to meet more easily with government employees, which can be beneficial for people with disabilities or time and transportation constraints. Virtual reality can also provide immersive training to help government employees respond safely and effectively to high-pressure situations in the real world.
explore: How government initiatives drive digital transformation.
Agencies must prepare for decentralization and modernization
In terms of decentralized architecture, Deloitte rated government readiness a 2. Decentralization, Blockchain-powered ecosystems It is the key to building digital trust, which is a measure of user trust in an organization to create secure digital environments.
As blockchain adoption increases, Deloitte notes that there is an opportunity for agencies to use blockchain-powered solutions to enable, re-engineer and automate processes with other organizations. As regulators, agencies can provide policy and regulatory clarity to support national innovation.
Deloitte also gave the agencies a score of 2 on mainframe update. This refers to upgrading existing legacy IT systems (such as mainframe computers) to fit today’s technology landscape, rather than replacing entire platforms. Organizations use mainframes to drive digital transformation so they can take advantage of the trusted functionality of old systems capabilities of emerging technologies.
Deloitte invites agencies to consider using technologies and technologies that allow incremental modernization and incremental service improvements to embrace emerging technologies while Reducing migration risks.
The challenge in implementing such emerging technologies is to find the right balance between seizing new opportunities and maintaining safety.
“In our increasingly digital world, government system failures can have catastrophic effects. By contrast, constraints on government budgets and constant changes in the workforce make it increasingly necessary to implement advanced automation technologies,” says Buchholz. “Leaders must balance between modernization needs, budget constraints, knowledge loss, persistent cybersecurity threats, and the ever-present risk of technological disruption.”
Learn about: How federal agencies can leverage the cloud to update their application.
Agencies are adopting some major trends
The public sector scored better in some of the technology trends Deloitte indicated were relevant. The measure of relevance of a report takes into account how influential it will be if the government adopts a direction. (The grading scale runs from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest score.)
Managing multicloud environments Agencies have a relevance score of 4. In this trend, agencies have a readiness score of 3. Deloitte notes that agencies should automate managing complexity with ready-made tools to manage details across all cloud vendors.
In the direction of reimagining the tech workforce for more agility, the public sector received the highest score of 5 on the suitability scale and a readiness score of 3.
According to the report, hiring to meet current needs is not a good long-term strategy. Instead, companies should embrace the mindset that technical talent can be curated, created, and refined, with flexibility being the most important ability. Deloitte points out that in addition to hiring top talent, agencies must also create pipelines of “non-traditional talent” for the future.