Every day, state and local governments are doing more with less. As workloads grow at agencies nationwide, their budgets and workforces contract in the opposite direction. At these agencies, success involves recognizing all their resources and using them to their full potential.
Unfortunately, many agencies aren’t getting a handle on these daily struggles. These agencies often lack visibility into their entire organization because of data silos; they also haven’t implemented strategies that are recruiting and retaining today’s top talent. The public services these agencies deliver, meanwhile, are increasingly falling short of citizens’ expectations for them when compared to the private sector’s version.
Although these circumstances sound challenging, cloud computing can offer agencies a way out. To understand how cloud can give agencies a unified platform for conducting their business, GovLoop spoke with Sherry Amos, Director of Market Development, Education and Government at Workday. Workday provides cloud-based financial and human capital management solutions.
Amos said that scores of agencies are in the dark about some key factors regarding their business. For instance, many agencies aren’t aware of how many positions they have filled at a given time. Cloud can overcome this obstacle by providing a single platform for managing finances, human resources (HR), business management and more. “This all happens in a unified environment,” Amos said. “All this data is in one place. Agencies aren’t having to assemble those solutions in multiple places.”
By pooling data in one place, cloud aids leaders by letting them see their operations agencywide. The resulting insights inform agencies about how to plot their business, finance and workforce strategies. “Everything is available in real-time,” Amos said. “They don’t have to wait 10 days to get a report. It’s what we call business process engines.”
Adopting cloud, however, has other benefits for agencies. Cloud can produce cost savings by reducing how much physical IT assets agencies have; it can also provide them with continuously reliable operations. Gradually, agencies using cloud can become more flexible, streamlined and intelligent about their missions. “Many applications have had huge upgrade costs associated with them over the years,” Amos said. “With cloud, they don’t have to plan for those big, costly upgrades anymore. They have access to them, but they can choose to turn them on or off.”
Ultimately, cloud can help close the CX gap citizens see between their agencies and the private sector. The agencies that empower their workforces with modern capabilities, then, are the ones who are more equipped to serve their citizens too.
Takeaway: Cloud can help agencies fully comprehend their financial, HR and workforce resources to better serve their citizens.
This article is an excerpt from GovLoop’s recent guide, “How State & Local Gov Tech Will Look in 2020 & Beyond.” Download the full guide here.
