How Digitization Empowers Government

Digitization empowers government agencies to focus on what they do best – serving the American people. As government builds a constituent experience that exceeds future expectations and a workplace that attracts and retains high quality employees, it needs partners with reliable services.

In GovLoop’s recent event, The Power of Collaboration in Government, George Fischer, President of Verizon Enterprise Solutions (VES), shared how agencies and the private sector can better collaborate to make digitization empower government.

First, Fischer identified the primary needs of government from private sector entities, like Verizon. These include:

• Trusted partnership
• Understanding of mission, vision and the way ahead
• Innovation
• User education methods
• Envisioned solutions based on the latest and emerging technology
• Realistic solutions that promote efficiency
• Proficiency with federal contracts like Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

For Fischer, his company’s mission is to “empower customers and partners to thrive by delivering the connected world; simply, securely and reliably.”

“We used to be the pipes and wires people,” Fischer said. “But the world has changed. Workplaces are not only changing for millennials, they’re changing for all of us,” Fischer said. “We now have to focus on implementation, multiple deployment, devices and training.”

That means the private sector is changing its offerings for government too. Rather than being just about technology products, companies are focusing on “providing services as well as communications capabilities that allow people to interact from almost anywhere,” according to Fischer.

Additionally, Fischer and his company focus on providing expert support at every stage of an organization’s digitization journey.  “We provide adoption services,” he said. “These are robust managed and professional services where we try to take the burden off our customers.”

Digitization also drives a desire and demand for everything to be intuitive. “People need to be able to have quick and easy-to-find reference materials if they get stuck,” Fischer said.

Using such services, a federal agency was recently able to successfully deploy Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)-compliant collaboration.

Some of the challenges the agency was facing included replacing end-of-life and on premise equipment and meeting stringent FedRAMP security requirements.

Verizon helped the agency by improving its communications, security and managed and professional services. First, the company helped integrate full WebEx deployment that was compliant with the government agency’s licensing environment. Next, Verizon partnered with Cisco to ensure the agency was FedRAMP-compliant. Lastly, through extensive training and support of IT employees, Verizon made sure the agency was well equipped to handle its new collaboration services.

Now, the federal agency can:

-Conduct real-time mission collaboration with a secure, mobile workforce via integrated cloud-based conferencing and video.

–Attract next generation talent with modernized technology and a common user experience across any device.

-Ensure budget accuracy with predictable port charging.

–Meet stringent federal security protocols with FedRAMP-compliant products and deployment.

Government will continue to face a budget-constrained and threat-laden environment. Digitization is needed to deliver agency agility, security and collaboration to ensure future mission success. With more offerings, like training and managed services, the private sector is ready to step up to the plate to collaborate with government and promote empowerment through digitization.

This blog post is a recap of GovLoop’s recent event in partnership with Cisco, The Power of Collaboration in Government. For more recaps, click here.