when the going gets tough ...

Posting written by manxman over 3 years ago.
Last comment over 2 years ago, 3 Comments.

... so what's the impact of the credit crunch / global recession / global depression - how do organisations prioritise the (no doubt diminishing) pot available for investment?  Do we have to take a fresh approach to our aspirational goals of The Connected Republic 2.0?  Are priorities going to be about survival in the short term, based on real productivity improvement and lower costs?  How do we justify investing for the long term? 

It seems to me that the agenda will step back from buzz words like Transformation.  But while the language vanishes, how do we keep heading towards that goal?  I suspect the answer lies in even more governance to avoid the business saying "Let's buy a stand-alone solution - it will meet our business needs - and the vendor says its cheap".  Converged infrastructure becomes even more critical.

But, and its a big but, (note - only one T in but ;)) whatever we do has to deliver realisable benefits and improvements, rather than enabling jam tomorrow.  I think that will be the most critical element of ensuring we keep on the path towards our vision, even if we're now going to be taking smaller footsteps.

 

Allan

Comments

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

I am sure you are right, Alan, that both financially and psychologically the current financial crisis means that people will feel less ready to go for transformation. And there is certainly likely to be an impact on ICT spending. On the other hand, a crisis can encourage innovation and an increased readiness to do things in very different ways!

posted over 3 years ago

Russ_medium Russell Craig

I think both you and Paul are right.  We could be in for a few years where efficiency is very much in vogue which, for me, is no bad thing. There's plenty that can be done with ICT to improve government efficiency and focus on innovation and transformation at the same time.

 

Tow other things that may be very important is improvement in service quality and provision of more meaningful opportunities for participation - I expect public trust and satisfaction with government to be at an all time low right now and efforsts in these areas may help restore some of that.

posted over 3 years ago

Allan_paterson_3__smiling__medium manxman

The interesting thing is that generally the public (i.e. the citizen) want as little as possible to do with Government - it's our belief that the less they have to interact with Government, then the more satisfied they are.  That does of course mean that when they do, they really want it to be as simple, as complete, as convenient and as speedy as possible.

If I look at the public as the business community, then again simplicity and use of available knowledge seems to be the demand of the day. 

Both areas offer real opportunity for productivity if we take the crap, repetitive, unchallenged routine tasks off the poor overworked and undervalued employee.

But they also offer opportunity for productivity improvement for the citizen or business if we use technology to make their interaction with Government simple.  Indeed, in an economic development context, the simpler we can make an interaction (especially with the business community) the more sticky it becomes as they reach a level of productivity they can't achieve elesewhere.

On the other side of this financial climate, as a CIO, I need to watch out for my technology suppliers - some of them are becoming increasingly vulnerable as share prices tumble and their customer base retrenches (especially if they have a strong Financial Services clientele).

So strategies need to focus on ensuring technology vendors do not present a substantive risk  - CIO's need to minimise the amount of proprietary technologies in use or at the very least, do their risk analysis!

posted over 3 years ago