Smart cities start with smart foundations

As a member of the public sector, you’re no doubt hearing the terms ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent’ more often these days — particularly when referencing government’s ability to deliver improved services in an increasingly digital world.

Although the terms ‘smart city’ and ‘smart community’ conjure up all manner of transformative technologies that will present an intelligent and connected environment, many councils will plan steps toward a smarter future — some even conducting successful pilot programs — without fully understanding the foundational requirements.

Smart initiatives depend on the use of technologies that capture and analyse data from different sources. While the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) is undeniably creating new opportunities to better serve the community, if the underlying structure to gather and process information is cumbersome or otherwise inefficient, that pathway to ‘smart’ may not be as smooth as envisaged.

‘Smart’ plans rely on digital transformation

Councils are complex organisations, providing manifold services that require interaction with a broad range of community members. With that complexity comes a range of disparate systems, which are used — to varying degrees of success — to meet the needs of the public and of the council itself.

Over the years, many local government departments will have invested heavily in hardware and software — often a multitude of point systems and standalone products — as well as dedicated in-house IT resources, pouring funds into infrastructure and solutions designed to streamline processes and workflows.

This scenario has probably served the needs of the internal environment and the wider community, so it is common to find an attitude of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, when it comes to making future plans.

This raises a crucial point, and one that many local government entities will fail to recognise: a smart city or smart community plan is a multiyear journey that is also an exercise in evolution and business transformation. Today’s actions will have a marked influence on the eventual success — or failure — of any potential ‘smart’ initiatives.

Running an assortment of standalone applications brings immediate challenges. It often means working with several vendors as each application incorporates its own technology and database and requires specific skill sets (either deployed in-house or outsourced) to implement system modifications or improvements. You’ll also need those systems to talk to one another, most commonly achieved by creating an elaborate integration layer, usually with significant cost overhead.

In trying to simplify the system, this approach effectively adds a layer of complexity that requires additional resources to manage. Even when pilot tests appear outwardly successful, it can be difficult to replicate that success when scaling to a real-world scenario. To realise ‘smart community’ ambitions, the underlying technology and architecture must be appropriate and enabling. As a result, the journey must start with digital transformation and a SaaS-enabled environment.

Smart councils realise this, appreciating that by simplifying their IT layer, they can remove the need for dedicated in-house resources, reduce capital expenditure and be free to focus on business outcomes.

Opening the door

The thing about planning for the future is you can never be entirely sure what it holds. IoT, augmented and virtual reality, wearables and a host of other technologies are poised to change the way we interact within our world… and who knows what other new transformative technologies are around the corner?

This makes a reliance on old, outdated technology even more problematic, as legacy systems are often closed and proprietary. Even with an integration layer built across the top, these applications are unlikely to meet tomorrow’s demands. Building on a 10-year-old system will quickly surpass the point of diminishing returns, making today’s ‘investment’ nothing more than a sunk cost. Implementing a solution that employs an open protocol architecture means there won’t be a requirement for complex re-engineering to support transformative technologies as they are developed in the years ahead.

Shifting the mindset

The vision for a smart city should be fundamentally constructed around the needs of a community and its residents. As individuals, people adapt to new ways of communicating and consuming relatively easy, but it generally takes a shift in our mindset to achieve this. Not so long ago, for example, we purchased CDs and DVDs and had physical confirmation that we ‘owned’ the music we listened to and movies we watched.

The advent of smartphones, tablets, the cloud and increasingly fast internet access has changed the landscape entirely. We stream movies, TV and music and no longer feel attached to a physical representation of something, because we have the world at our fingertips. We can access anything we need to, from any device, anywhere in the world.

This shift raises two key points for local governments with smart city or smart community ambitions:

1. General expectation has changed — and it is redefining how councils must think and act to better service customers and community members. An underlying architecture that facilitates a simple process for communication and doing business is imperative.
2. ‘Ownership’ is no longer confined to the tangible — moving from disparate on-premise applications to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise solution is a logical choice. It frees up resources, saves on capital expenditure and provides a better path to a smarter future.

With digital transformation key to local governments realising their smart ambitions, councils are increasingly looking for a reliable and robust solution only a SaaS-enabled environment can offer.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/robu_s

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