Gartner has named ‘digital identity ecosystems’ as one of its top 10 government technology trends for 2023.
Gartner predicts more than a third of national governments will offer citizens mobile-based identity wallets by 2024. It noted: “Governments are facing new responsibilities in emerging digital identity ecosystems, with expectations to ensure trust, innovation and adoption across sectors and borders.
“To achieve this, governments must make high-assurance digital identity easy to obtain and relevant for diverse target groups of end users and service providers.”
On the trends, Arthur Mickoleit, director analyst at Gartner, said: “Government CIOs must demonstrate their digital investments aren’t just tactical in nature as they continue to improve service delivery and core mission impacts.”
The other trends are:
Adaptive Security
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 75 percent of government CIOs will be directly responsible for security outside of IT, including operational and mission-critical technology environments. The convergence of enterprise data, privacy, supply chain, cyber-physical systems (CPS) and cloud requires an integrated security approach. CIOs should link adaptive security to broader digital innovation, transformation, national security and resilience objectives.
Cloud-Based Legacy Modernisation
Leading governments are under pressure to break down legacy, siloed systems and data stores to modernise IT infrastructure and applications to ensure more resilient government services. CIOs can use adaptive sourcing strategies to identify areas where ‘as-a-service’ delivery models augment internal resources and address business priorities. Gartner predicts more than 75 percent of governments will operate more than half of workloads using hyperscale cloud service providers by 2025.
Sovereign Cloud
Global uncertainty, as well as concerns over data privacy and potential government overreach, are resulting in greater demand for sovereign clouds. Governments are increasingly seeking to limit exposure of data and infrastructure by external jurisdictions and foreign government access. Gartner predicts over 35 percent of government legacy applications will be replaced by solutions developed on low-code application platforms and maintained by fusion teams by 2025.
Hyperautomation
According to Gartner, 60 percent of government organizations will prioritize business process automation by 2026, up from 35 percent in 2022. Hyperautomation initiatives support business and IT processes in government to deliver connected and seamless citizen services. CIOs must align automation initiatives with current priorities to pursue digital transformation, while also optimizing operational costs.
AI for Decision Intelligence
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By 2024, Gartner predicts 60 percent of government AI and data analytics investments will directly impact real-time operational decisions and outcomes. AI for decision intelligence provides governments with rapid, accurate and early decision-making capabilities at scale. CIOs must prepare for widespread AI use by ensuring data is available at points of decision and by establishing effective governance principles.
Data Sharing as a Programme
Data sharing as an ad hoc effort among agencies and departments is no longer sufficient given the demands to drive value from data and analytics. By the end of 2023, Gartner predicts 50 percent of government organisations will establish formal accountability structures for data sharing, including standards for data structure, quality and timeliness. CIOs should focus on value-added and mission objectives when developing data-sharing initiatives.
Total Experience (TX)
By 2026, government total experience (TX) approaches will reduce process ambiguity by 90 percent, while increasing satisfaction metrics for both customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) by 50 percent. TX creates synergies and coherence among traditionally siloed disjointed CX, EX, multi-experience (MX) and user experience (UX) disciplines in support of government transformation. CIOs can reduce experience friction points by mapping, visualizing and redesigning citizen and employee journeys.
Case Management as a Service (CMaaS)
The integration of government services depends on designing and developing case management solutions as composable products and services that can be shared across the programs, verticals and levels of government. Gartner predicts that by 2024, agencies using composable case management will implement new features 80 percent faster than their peers. CIOs should demonstrate how better outcomes, improved collaboration or program integration can be attained.
Composable Government Applications
Governments can successfully break down legacy, siloed systems and data stores by applying a composable architecture. Continuous improvement and modernisation can be achieved by adopting a modular approach to application architecture and by exploiting rapid advancements in automation and machine learning.
What’s the challenge for government leaders?
Ash Finnegan, digital transformation officer at Conga, said that with a recent National Audit Office (NAO) report confirming that government leaders need a better understanding of digital transformation if their change programmes are to be effective, the guidance from Gartner will be welcomed by the industry.
“The challenge is that government leaders have previously focused on technology and online interactions, adding layers to services, whilst still relying on old data and legacy systems − this has ultimately led to inefficiencies across departments. Put simply, they have failed to address existing issues or streamline their day-to-day operations,” he said.
“It is critical that data is more readily available and easily shared, particularly if leaders are hoping to employ artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) tools to empower their decision making. As Gartner identified, public sector leaders can reduce friction points and bottlenecks by mapping and redesigning citizen and employee journeys. The focus should be on improving data structure, quality and timeliness. Therefore, integrating systems and streamlining processes should be the priority. All systems, data and workflows must be properly structured and fully optimised prior to implementation for these technologies to be effective.”
Finnegan said that government CIOs should focus on aligning digital change programmes with current priorities, whilst optimising operational costs. The focus should not be on the technology, but rather establishing meaningful objectives, as they continue to improve service delivery and core mission impacts.
“Public sector leaders need to be more strategic with their investments and approach these projects with a level head, rolling out a programme in a phased manner, considering each phase of their operations. Digital transformation must be treated as a continuous journey. At a basic level, it is all about reconsidering the relationship between people, processes, and data, establishing a pathway that connects all these variables.”
