The Time for Modernization via the Cloud Is Now

This blog post is an excerpt from our recent ebook, created in partnership with Avaya, Unifying Government Communications With Cloud. Download it for free here. 

Cloud is well-established in the private sector, and scores of major companies routinely use the technology for modernizing and delivering popular services. It’s a reality that has agencies scrambling to keep up with the customer experience (CX) citizens are receiving from private-sector organizations.

“Most of what we touch daily is in cloud,” said Mitch Robinson, Senior Director of Cloud Sales for Avaya Government Solutions. “There’s a willingness to accept the fact that cloud’s inevitable. But getting there is difficult, and you need good partners to do so.”

A GovLoop and Avaya survey of 81 federal employees illustrates why agencies are struggling with cloud and IT modernization. Twenty-seven percent said that lacking a dedicated budget is their organization’s biggest pain point for modernization. Nineteen percent, meanwhile, cited their lack of resources and talent.

Overcoming these two hurdles is critical for agencies looking to reap the benefits of modernization using cloud. Forty-three percent said that improved efficiencies and increased productivity are the biggest benefits of modernizing for their agencies. Thirteen percent, meanwhile, said that improving the collaboration between their agency’s stakeholders would deliver the most value.

While agencies nationwide grapple with concerns such as these, President Trump has made IT modernization a major focus. The President’s Management Agenda (PMA) released in 2018, for example, calls IT modernization a “key driver of transformation” for the federal government. The PMA’s three modernization priorities include enhancing mission effectiveness, reducing cybersecurity risks to the federal mission and building a modern IT workforce.

Despite the buzz around cloud and its benefits, only 14 percent said that moving their workloads to cloud is a high priority, and in fact, 33 percent said it was not a priority.

Craig Haskins, Chief Customer Officer for Avaya Government Solutions, said that now more than ever, agencies should strategize about how to adopt cloud without disrupting their missions – and not necessarily just because it’s a focus of the administration, but because it’s what users expect and need today.

“What’s the rationalization for cloud adoption?” he asked. “Economics? Security? There are many good reasons for going to cloud, but just because there’s a directive isn’t one of them.”