Enabling enterprise mobility in government

With costs rising across the board, taxpayers are understandably showing more interest in how government funds are being spent. The public sector faces mounting pressure to streamline internal processes, reduce administrative costs and accelerate responsiveness, all while managing the needs of a more mobile workforce.

Like the private sector, becoming an intelligent enterprise is now more important than ever for government agencies so they can remain adaptable to constantly evolving national and global challenges. The public sector must also be ready to harness emerging opportunities for the benefit of the nation.

One of the most effective ways Australian government agencies can achieve this is by investing in digital, data-driven technologies that help optimise internal processes and realise greater levels of productivity and efficiency. For example, agencies that prioritise data integrity and adopt near-real-time data analytics capabilities will be better positioned to build mobility, agility and resilience into every aspect of operations and become intelligent enterprises. This doesn’t just apply to key agencies such as defence, transport, and finance, but also to agencies that historically haven’t relied on the valuable insights and capabilities that data analytics can bring. Having the right data analytics available to the right people at the right time improves insights to support critical areas such as cost control and workforce retention.

The importance of improving enterprise mobility in government

Many government agencies still rely on having a primarily office-based workforce. While traditionally this model has worked well, COVID-19 lockdowns forced departments to quickly accommodate remote and hybrid working. To some extent, this has remained as the public sector aims to retain talented workers who are not yet comfortable with returning to the office full time or workers who have relocated from city locations to regional areas.

As the great reshuffle continues and public and private sectors vie for top talent, enterprise mobility will become increasingly important for agencies, especially those that want to enable their workers to engage more with communities.

Enterprise mobility refers to being a more mobile organisation underpinned by reliable, secure technology that supports all facets of mobile, remote and hybrid work. For a hybrid or remote workplace to be successful, it needs technology that lets authorised users easily find information, collaborate and securely access data across multiple devices through cloud technology.

To truly achieve enterprise mobility, the organisation must be on a path to become an intelligent enterprise. Intelligent enterprises move beyond being data-driven organisations to agencies that consistently embed advanced technologies, live data analysis and best practice processes across every aspect of the department at all levels.

This approach helps to eliminate legacy data siloes that create bottlenecks and impede internal processes that slow government decision-making. Instead, agencies that adopt an intelligent enterprise business model achieve more dynamic cross-functional business processes both within the agency and across agencies. This delivers complete visibility for government decision-makers because of the real-time and accurate insights they have of their organisation, sister agency issues that may impact on their department, and constituents. This can result in optimal citizen, employee and stakeholder experiences, and deliver a more agile organisational approach.

One simple example of this is smart cities, whereby the intelligent enterprise model can eliminate data siloes and drive greater levels of cross-department collaboration, such as planning and environment, infrastructure, communities and finance, to fast-track projects that can realise the smarter cities agenda more efficiently than legacy departmental models.

There are three important benefits that come from being an intelligent enterprise in the public sector:

1. Agility

The level of collaboration that the intelligent enterprise model provides both within the agency and across agencies, while securely enabling mobile and remote workforces, gives government departments greater levels of agility. It provides agencies with the same level of agility as leading private sector enterprises, which is critical for the ever-evolving political and economic landscape.

Achieving agility at this level means the agency is much better equipped to adapt to environmental and societal changes. The volatility of recent years has shown how fast government departments need to react. As an intelligent enterprise, agencies will have the necessary technology to deliver the right data insights to the right people at the right time so agencies and government leaders can make more informed decisions that accommodate rapidly changing environments.

Advanced mobile technologies let intelligent enterprise agencies provide more mobility and flexibility to employees while saving infrastructure costs and reducing technology downtime. This helps reduce operational costs, improve efficiencies, boost productivity and retain valuable employees now seeking more flexible working arrangements. For example, the intelligent enterprise can support a secure remote working model that empowers employees to provide services from any location, mitigating the potential impact of future restrictions and providing a safer alternative workplace in case of future health and safety events. It also gives government workers information at their fingertips when engaging with community members, improving customer service.

2. Live data analysis

A key issue for government agencies is how to continually improve customer service and engagement. Eliminating data siloes and achieving live data analytics is crucial because it gives agencies more streamlined access to the data they need, when and where they need it, to deliver better services to constituents. This includes critical data such as transport interruptions or environmental and community issues that impact citizens’ daily lives. An intelligent enterprise makes this information more easily available for government agencies, so decision-makers get necessary insights to deliver better outcomes for constituents and, ultimately, much better customer service and engagement.

Having real-time data analysis with the most up-to-date information on projects and current operations enabled by mobile cloud technologies also reduces the time and resources needed for manual reports, leading to faster results and turnaround times. And, it reduces the risk of errors in analysis and reporting, which directly impacts constituent outcomes.

3. Best practice processes

The advanced technology within an intelligent enterprise provides government agencies with the tools to streamline processes and implement more efficient practices. This lets agencies capitalise more on the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), taking advantage of automation capabilities and freeing up workers to focus more on strategic objectives and customer engagement.

Adopting smart technologies, such as AI and ML, and deploying tools that help improve internal communications and alignment, while streamlining business processes, automating tasks and operations, and optimising operations, empowers the public sector to set and achieve the same level of business best practice that’s realised in the private sector. The outcome is a next-generation government that can more easily keep pace with rapidly changing consumer and community needs while continuously improving cost and operational efficiencies, and worker productivity and engagement.

The idea of the intelligent enterprise and more robust data analytics may seem like a simplistic model to government agencies that are already on a solid path to digital transformation. However, the reality is that it unlocks an unprecedented capability for agencies to reshape how departments function and deliver long-term cost and operational efficiency gains, while improving how agencies are perceived by community stakeholders.

This both supports the government of the day and creates a sustainable enterprise for the future public sector as it helps agencies more effectively uncover ways to address the growing challenges of a rapidly aging population, climate change and social issues across local, state and federal levels.

Data accessibility, integrity, real-time analytics, advanced technologies for digitalisation and hybrid working models are the future for government agencies. These technologies build mobility, agility and resilience, and are the backbone for an intelligent enterprise. Government agencies that want to improve efficiencies, save costs and build better engagement with staff and communities must embrace these capabilities and the technological solutions that support them to evolve public sector processes to meet the needs of the digital economy.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Eugenio Marongiu