The publication of the government鈥檚 aims to address this need by setting out ambitious plans to narrow the country鈥檚 geographical, social and economic inequalities. This has promised to boost productivity, improve access to public services, and raise living standards across the UK – while also placing local leaders at the centre of wider government decision-making.

However, in order for this to be achieved, leaders of local communities must be equipped with the tools, knowledge, and information needed to drive this transformation going forwards. While not a silver-bullet solution, technology could be the answer to creating jobs, enhancing service delivery, and streamlining local authority processes in the months and years ahead.

Driving economic growth beyond the Southeast听

from the Centre for Economics and Business Research has shown that automation has the potential to increase productivity across the UK by 15%, particularly in critical services industries such as transportation and healthcare. This could create up to 3.3 million additional jobs across the country, helping to narrow the current North/South divide.

In fact, a has predicted the creation of 365,000 jobs by 2050 due to the transition to net zero, with the Northwest seeing the highest number of new roles in the UK. This growth will also be concentrated in specific sectors, such as the production of electric vehicles and electrical equipment.

Key to achieving this is narrowing the gap between public sector organisations and technology companies 鈥� from multinational corporates, all the way to smaller start-ups. However, despite living in an age of connectivity, technology companies and local decision-makers often work separately from one another.

Business networks can play a crucial role in filling this gap by offering a combination of products, services and platforms for transacting, analysing and optimising the vast swathe of processes needed to function as a business in a modern globalised economy. For example, the 麻豆原创 Business Network can help public sector organisations become a lead coordinator within their region. Local authorities can use these business networks to direct public sector procurement spend, providing local businesses and start-ups with a fully digitalised process that reaches across suppliers, services and providers.

Streamlining processes and enhancing service delivery

With public sector organisations facing听, adopting an agile operating model is now vital. This means being able to understand the long-term demands and requirements of citizens, and using these to inform ongoing improvements to service delivery. Agile organisations are also generally more flexible in their adoption and deployment of new technologies, allowing them to continually adapt their operations in line with socio-economic changes.

Software such as financial spend management can also help streamline local authority processes by freeing up an organisation鈥檚 time and allowing businesses to allocate their resources towards larger priorities. With added capacity, this could help support local activities such start-ups, mentoring and coaching. This can help public sector organisations deliver a seamless, efficient and more agile听service to citizens in their region.

Using data to build citizen profiles

Accounting for the needs and demands of citizens when streamlining and modernising business processes will allow public sector organisations to incorporate citizen feedback into the decision-making process. This will help organisations deliver a citizen-centric programme that caters to the issues that matter to local communities.

Collecting sentiment data from citizens about their experiences with public sector services and storing the information in a unified customer data platform can allow public sector organisations to build a robust profile of respondents. When combined with business process intelligence data, organisations can not only place citizens at the heart of local government decision-making, but also identify areas that require improvement. This data could also be used to support local economic regeneration activities for employment, encouraging the competitiveness and prosperity of local regions.

A key example of this was the adoption of by Christchurch City Council in 2018. This enabled the council to effectively visualise constituent service requests, helping to develop a greater understanding of citizens. As a result, the council has been able to adopt a citizen-first approach, meaning they can effectively serve and represent constituents in the years ahead.

While there is no 鈥榦ne-size-fits-all’ approach towards levelling up the UK, technology and digital transformation could help drive economic growth, enhance service delivery, and provide greater insight into citizen demands. This will allow the public sector to adopt a citizen-centric approach, while also helping to meet future targets for levelling up.

Satpal Biant is head of Public Sector for 麻豆原创 UK&I.

The post Three Ways Technology Can Help Public Sector Organisations Level Up The UK appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.

Partly in response to these challenges, the UK government recently launched its Shared Services Strategy. The Strategy is designed to introduce more agile back-office technology systems and to bring together core functions across Government organisations into a single simplified centre. The goal is to reduce inefficiencies, remove technical debt, introduce advances in technology and improve the working experience overall, as employees will have more time and ability to focus on higher value work.

Once again, Public Sector Technology Leaders are stepping forward to deliver these advances. To realise the Government鈥檚 strategy, old processes and supplier partnerships need to be re-evaluated and new ones put in place. It鈥檚 another major transformation programme for organisations and it has no UK precedent. Fortunately, there are public sector organisations in other parts of the world who have undergone similar successful transformation programmes, leveraging out of the box cloud technologies who can show the way forward.

The DFO takes the journey from 鈥極racle to 麻豆原创鈥�

Take for example, the recent digital transformation of Canada鈥檚 Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The Department comprises of several agencies including oceans, wildlife, and waterways and providing services like dredging and ice breaking, hydrographic mapping, selling fishing licences and maintaining the coastguard service.

Since 2001, the DFO had been working with an on-premise Oracle financial management solution. Over the past 20 years, it had been attempting to update its processes and analytics capabilities by layering on technology and building workarounds. But gaps in functionality persisted and maintaining process across several systems put its continued operations at risk from a controlling and reporting perspective. This exasperated maintenance workers and resulted in higher support costs. It was time for a new solution – one fit for purpose for the agile, modern organisation.

Enter 麻豆原创

The DFO chose 麻豆原创 to lead its digital transformation programme, replacing the Oracle system with 麻豆原创鈥檚 modern cloud solution. In fact, for most organisations, 麻豆原创鈥檚 scalability and robust functionality, along with its streamlined implementation process and experience with Public Sector digital transformation programmes makes shifting from legacy Oracle on-prem to 麻豆原创 Cloud services an easier, more cost effective and faster process than moving to Oracle Cloud.

The DFO recognised many benefits from the 麻豆原创 solution and its implementation, notably including:

An out-of-the-box solution: 麻豆原创鈥檚 preconfigured processes were already aligned to the needs of Public Sector organisation which meant that 80% of the DFO鈥檚 standard needs could be adopted 鈥榦ut of the box鈥�. This was critical because the DFO project was part of a wider program of additional shared services clusters, all using the same templated approach.

A modular rollout approach: Where configuration and/or prioritisation was required, 麻豆原创鈥檚 unique modular rollout approach let the organisation 鈥榩ick and mix鈥� modules. For the DFO, this meant addressing its biggest pain points and greatest issues first. This helped the organisation realise quick wins and show clear business outcomes almost from the beginning.

Identifying and eliminating risks: 麻豆原创 de-risks digital transformation projects by introducing 鈥榓ccelerators鈥�, essentially blueprints that provide a quick start for scenarios, as-and-when needed. The accelerator approach gave the DFO the freedom to determine its own change path based on what was right for each department, while maintaining momentum and clear business outcomes. There was also a cost benefit to this 鈥� the DFO could choose smaller modules to roll out first and pay as they went.

Streamlined user experience: The 麻豆原创 solution was designed with the end user experience in mind, including intuitive navigation and greater automation of processes to reduce manual tasks.

Ongoing training: Throughout the implementation, 麻豆原创 gathered requirements and showcased the capabilities of the system to end users. They were given access to a learning hub to help them learn how to operate the system well before the finalisation of the project. This sped up acceptance of the new systems and reduced the time and expense of training when the systems came on-line.

Lower costs: The cloud platform kept infrastructure costs low, and the modular rollout approach resulted in quick wins early on 鈥� often self-funding the organisational change.

This tried-and-tested implementation process helped the DFO complete its transition to the 麻豆原创 system in just 13 months. The DFO is already witnessing value beyond just a return on investment, as there is reduced reliance on large technical teams, vendors and system integrators. It is a case study in digital transformation success that will be replicated across Canada鈥檚 public sector departments for many years to come.

As the UK Public Sector Technology Leaders take on the new challenge of implementing the Government鈥檚 Services Strategy, they can look across the pond to this and other 麻豆原创 Public Sector solutions for inspiration. Case studies like the DFO show how highly complex and regulated organisation can undertake a major transformation that starts to recognise value almost immediately and equips the organisation and its leaders with the technology it needs to respond to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Satpal Biant is head of Public Sector for 麻豆原创 UK&I.

The post How The Shared Services Strategy Could Work In Practice 鈥� A Case Study In Public Sector Digital Transformation appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.

That may have been the case years ago, but it couldn鈥檛 be further from the truth today. The pace of technology has sped up and a 鈥榬ip and replace鈥� model is not a sustainable approach to transformation. It certainly doesn鈥檛 help an organisation operate more efficiently.

Instead, leaders should be moving their organisations to an agile tech environment, where processes can be continuously reconfigured according to people鈥檚 changing needs in an uncertain world. This means that organisations need to be fluent in the language of their processes 鈥� understanding what they do, why and how they do it. This way, when the goal posts shift, they can shift with them to exploit new opportunities or mitigate unforeseen threats. There is no 鈥榚nd-state鈥� of digital transformation – only a starting point for sustainable agility and constant adaptation.

That need for agility is why 麻豆原创 offers a modular suite of products that can adapt to an organisation鈥檚 needs and unique situation. 听We also leverage 麻豆原创 Signavio, our software suite for business process management, to ensure that the digital transformation process itself is part of the destination.

Mapping the organisation and where it needs to go with Signavio

From day one of a digital transformation programme, the 麻豆原创 implementation teams use Signavio tools to model our customer鈥檚 current, as-is foundation, creating a complete operational and system overlay. We model existing processes and give people the ability to navigate and digest it from multiple different entry-points and approaches.

We shape the process modelling to what best suits the organisation and gives users the best insights. This can mean starting with workflow processes at a lower level and working bottom-up, so the hierarchy and architecture modelling take care of themselves. Sometimes the best approach is the most straightforward 鈥� so for example, mapping an invoice process by simply following an invoice to see where it goes 鈥� this approach can reap some unexpected insights.

Where in the organisation we start with Signavio is not set in stone. We can test the solution on any function, and gradually roll it out to other areas once its value is demonstrated. For the public sector in particular, this not only lowers risk but also takes some of the sting out of difficult procurement processes, as smaller licences can be purchased and enlarged later as and when needed.

Collaboration is the key

As we begin to build a picture of an organisations鈥� processes, these are recorded in the cloud browser-based Collaboration Hub, capturing not only process mining and process insights, but governance and risk too. It becomes the single source of the truth for an organisation, where all users can consume and digest how the business operation runs.

This crowdsourcing approach is unique to 麻豆原创, and critical. The biggest factor that causes transformation projects to fail is not the rollout of technology, but the adoption and integration into the organisation once it has gone live. Using the Collaboration Hub allows everyone affected by the transformation to contribute from day one and leverages the wisdom of the crowd to determine whether or not the change programme an organisation is pursuing is the right approach for everyone. Organisations that take a deeply collaborative approach often don鈥檛 even need to go through business change programmes, because everyone has visibility and clarity from the beginning.

Simulating outcomes

When it comes to testing new processes to mitigate risk, one of the most important features of 麻豆原创鈥檚 Signavio tool is its ability to simulate multiple future scenarios, based on process or operational change. The simulation capabilities turn the outcomes of process changes from conjecture into something real. It lets users test varying demands on process like staff resourcing, periods of increased demand, bottlenecks in approvals, etc. We can then create a baseline that can be used to improve processes and simulate new ones. The ability to 鈥榗heck鈥� before investing in change reduces potential losses.

The ability to test multiple process change opportunities to identify the best choice, ensures that the organisation can continuously follow the discipline of operational excellence. This is the careful balance of people, process, and technology, and that balance is in constant evolution. Being able to constantly ask and answer 鈥榳hat if?鈥� in a risk-free environment ensures that changes to process and operations benefit both the top and bottom lines of the organisation. This is how the public sector can generate significant, ongoing value and stay agile.

The human element

Too often, one of the ways that organisations justify IT procurement is by first reducing headcount and using the saved costs as a business case to buy new tech. This is extremely risky for organisations that don鈥檛 fully understand the roles their people are carrying out and the processes they are involved in.

麻豆原创 Signavio helps organisations understand current roles and helps them make decisions about where efficiencies can be made, which might not necessarily include headcount reductions. Signavio can reveal where people are being slowed down by IT and getting distracted from their work by 鈥榗lunky鈥� processes. New processes and reallocated resources may allow staff to focus on areas that have greater levels of productivity and refocus on utilising their expertise. By determining and unlocking the maximum potential for each employee, efficiency and productivity gains may outweigh any previous cost concerns that would have led to headcount reductions.

Simplify then automate

One of the ways this can be achieved is intelligent use of automation. By simulating future state scenarios, users can make more informed decisions on how to implement automation. It鈥檚 not as straightforward as 鈥榓utomate to simplify鈥� 鈥� the better approach is to 鈥榮implify then automate鈥�. Automation is like a digital person or group of people and any automated or digital worker needs to be in the right team with the right KPIs, with the environment that is best for success. So, it is critical to have insights into those factors and ensure there is the ability to manage changes.

麻豆原创 Signavio is an enabling technology to allow transformation leaders to manage change and run projects more efficiently, realising value as quickly as possible while mitigating risk. The decision to map out an organisation鈥檚 current processes on 麻豆原创 Signavio should not be seen as a one-time return to the drawing board. The drawing board should always be looked at and be your go-to forevermore because it will be the key to making continuous smart decisions about change and staying agile. That constant evaluation of process and efficiency should be embraced.

Satpal Biant is head of Public Sector for 麻豆原创 UK&I.

The post Making The Journey Part Of The Digital Transformation Destination With 麻豆原创 Signavio appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.

That informs the way we approach our customers鈥� needs. Rather than first asking how an organisation can use our products, we ask: 鈥楬ow can we help this organisation succeed? How can we help it achieve its purpose? How can we help it run better and how can our software and services improve the lives of its employees, customers and stakeholders?鈥�

The purpose of the UK public sector is to provide the public services that benefit all citizens and to manage these, day to day.听Yet many organisations within the public sector can鈥檛 do this as efficiently as they should, because they don鈥檛 have a full view of their data assets, business processes or their end users 鈥� us citizens. They may not have the skills, tools or permission to access and interpret data that could help them achieve their purpose more effectively.

This is a big reason why the Government announced its in 2021. The strategy has three key objectives: One, to provide a better user experience with systems that are
intuitive, easy to use, and mobile-enabled. Two, to achieve greater efficiency and value for money through better systems and services, which support productivity and reduce costs. And three, to standardise processes and data to support interoperability, making it easier to understand and compare corporate data.

It鈥檚 that third objective that interests me the most鈥� how 麻豆原创, with its nearly 50-year history in the public sector, can help the UK Government use data to better serve citizens. In this article, I鈥檒l look at three of the main hurdles standing in the way of the public sector achieving its purpose and how they can be overcome.

1. Inconsistent data architecture

In 2013, the government announced its , which led to the transition of most front-facing, citizen-centric services to the cloud. However, many back-office systems were left untouched, never upgraded or moved to the cloud. Those organisations are still working with this aged, on-premise software. It鈥檚 no surprise, then, that the old technology can鈥檛 manage or keep pace with the data and processing power of the front-end cloud-based systems.

As an example, I was recently speaking with a customer who couldn鈥檛 understand why her department鈥檚 HR software wouldn鈥檛 work properly on a new iPad. I had to explain that iPads were first launched in 2010 and that her new device was the latest 9^th generation of the iPad, whilst her HR software dated back to 2005! No wonder that these older, legacy IT systems can鈥檛 perform tasks that our own smartphones could easily manage. They were implemented before much of today鈥檚 technology even existed, and never changed.

The solution: The Shared Services Strategy will ensure that nearly all departments in the public sector make their own cloud journeys soon, enabling them to share data across departments. With solutions like 麻豆原创鈥檚 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP), government organisations can bring together next generation, modular cloud business applications (e.g. software for finance, human experience management, procurement and supply chain, etc) with database and data management, analytics, and integration. They will also be able to extend the capabilities of these business applications to meet their individual department needs, within one platform for both cloud and hybrid environments. This includes hundreds of pre-built integrations for 麻豆原创 and third-party applications like Oracle, ServiceNow, Microsoft, SalesForce, Pega etc.

2. Lack of internal resources

The technology skills gap is as real a challenge for the government as it is for the private sector. According to a recent report, 66% of digital leaders in Britain say that a lack of talent is primarily responsible for slower digital transformation in their organisations. The government simply can鈥檛 find employees with the skills or training needed to implement new technology systems fast enough. New technology systems are needed to remove the significant technical debt that exists across the government, which in turn makes the challenge of leveraging data a real blocker. The government relies on bringing in external resources to implement new technology systems, but as a by-product of the skills shortage, vendors are forced to pay more for talent and must pass the additional cost on to the organisation. The longer it takes to see the benefit of the solution, the harder it is for organisations to justify the expense.

The solution: The key to mitigating this problem is to speed up the time it takes for an organisation to recognise the value it is gaining from new technology. 听In this way, the organisation can validate its investment much more quickly. The 麻豆原创 Activate Methodology enables the organisation to benefit from reduced time to value. This modular, cloud and agile focused framework supplies project teams with detailed steps to be delivered in each phase throughout the project, provides accelerators which makes work easier to accomplish, and clear workstreams which span across various phases.

Combining 麻豆原创 Activate Methodology with 麻豆原创鈥檚 next generation, modular cloud ERP business applications, means that organisations can 鈥楽tart Anywhere, Go Everywhere鈥�. What this means is that you can deploy and consume the cloud technologies that are most pressing for your business needs and thereby reduce your upfront costs and realise value quicker. For example, think about being able to deploy and consume a next generation cloud Human Experience Management solution within 6 months, without having to wait for a programme plan for a monolithic and complex ERP solution. 麻豆原创鈥檚 unique modular approach means the organisation can start experiencing real value much sooner.

3. Overcoming the complexity

Replacing one technology platform with another is not always a simple 鈥榬ip and replace鈥� solution. The systems currently in use by the public sector have been customised and modified over time to meet the very specific needs of each department, with workarounds implemented along the way. It has seemed easier to repeatedly put sticking plaster on what鈥檚 wrong than to attempt end to end business transformation. However, GSS has confirmed that we鈥檙e at a stage where we have too many sticking plasters and we need to tackle the issue from the ground up.

The complexity can be daunting. For example, the UK Government鈥檚 Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been told to urgently review its IT strategy, as it was revealed that outdated systems can be held responsible for historic underpayments of over 拢1 billion. The Pension Service Computer System, introduced in 1988, has not subsequently been updated but instead run alongside new systems that together manage millions of records, and now will be incredibly complex and risky to update.

The solution: Organisations need both expert guidance and a holistic, collaborative approach to simplification. 麻豆原创鈥檚 business process intelligence (BPI) solutions provide end-to-end capabilities for strategic process transformation, while supporting business users in the change to new systems and processes. By truly understanding their end-to-end business processes, organisations can benchmark and simulate processes for alternative business scenarios. This helps them surface their current data challenges and needs whilst prioritising opportunities for automation. In addition, 麻豆原创鈥檚 Signavio鈥檚 collaboration hub can support in building a single source of truth across teams and break down data silos.

The solutions that underpin all these challenges rely on a focus on outcomes. Data and systems can feel far removed from achieving purpose, but it is in the intersections of data that we can identify ways to better serve an organisation, its employees and citizens. In my next article I鈥檒l look to some of the transformations we鈥檝e supported in the past, to show how our Shared Services Strategy can move organisations from process to purpose, while absorbing some of the risk in replacing outdated technology.

The post For The Government To Realise The Benefits Of The Shared Services Strategy, It Must Leverage Its Greatest Asset appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.

Likewise, some (primarily front-office) functions have transitioned to the cloud while others (usually back-office) are still running with on-premise, legacy systems, adding to the Government鈥檚 Technical Debt.

This siloed approach has fostered inefficiencies, increased complexity and has hampered organisations鈥� ability to share data with each other. It has also made it difficult, if not impossible to track end-to-end processes across the Government due to differences in the way data is captured and held.

These problems have only been exacerbated by the pandemic as home working and isolation measures have created a greater reliance on digital services. This in turn has placed additional stress on civil servants who are constantly required to learn new skills to engage with and deliver citizen services, and potentially move across departments within the Civil Service to support with capacity.

Announced in March 2021, the Government鈥檚 Shared Services Strategy for Government is designed to address these problems. It will consolidate digital services across five multi-department shared-services centres, categorised as 鈥楧efence鈥�, 鈥極verseas鈥�, 鈥楽ynergy鈥� (previously called 鈥楧elivery鈥�), 鈥楳atrix鈥� (previously called 鈥楶olicy鈥�) and 鈥楬MRC-led鈥�. The Strategy provides a roadmap for more streamlined and harmonised services featuring cloud-based modern ERP systems that are user friendly and easily integrated. 听, the Director General, Government Business Services: “[It] will allow the Civil Service to deliver insights; continuously improve to drive down costs; develop accessible, intuitive, and useful systems for civil servants; and innovate and embrace competition.鈥�

The Government has high aspirations for its digital transformation strategy 鈥� and rightfully so. Over the past decade, private enterprises have recognised enormous efficiency, integration and cost-saving benefits from similar cloud-transformation programmes. However, there are some considerations, unique to the public sector, which public sector change leaders must address before embarking on what will ideally be a long-term partnership between the organisations and the technology providers chosen to deliver results.

1. Accept that change is inevitable

鈥淚f it鈥檚 not broken, don鈥檛 fix it, right?鈥� In this case: wrong. One of the key challenges that public sector organisations will likely face in their move to a Shared Services model will be leaving behind familiar systems that have been highly customised to meet their organisation鈥檚 perceived needs.

However, even without the Shared Services Strategy, most legacy systems being used in the public sector today are already aging and out-of-date. Many organisations still don鈥檛 have a clear pathway to the cloud for their back-office systems. Existing systems need to be replaced to keep pace with technological advancements and to benefit from next generation, modular cloud ERP platforms, processing capabilities, automation and cybersecurity safeguards. Some vendors may compare moving to a new ERP system to a simple upgrade. In truth, completely new systems and processes will need to be put in place, data will need to be migrated and the user experience will change, for the better.

Because of this, it may be easier and more cost effective for organisations to move to a new technology vendor to support the transformation programme, rather than remain with an old provider that doesn鈥檛 provide the right level of technology capabilities, services or support.

2. Focus on value over price

In the past, traditional public sector procurement methods have been primarily based on a very simple evaluation criteria: Allocate a high percentage of marks to the lowest price.

This approach has historically not delivered the best outcome for customers, resulting in delayed projects or solutions that don鈥檛 meet the full scope of the requirements. 听These ill-conceived projects then must be managed through change control, leaving behind a trail of higher costs and at best strained and at worst completely broken relations between the customer, ERP provider and system integrator, in the courts and for all to see in the public domain.

Moving forward and when transitioning to the cloud, we all need to consider an alternative approach to procurement, by adopting a commercial model that makes all the parties work together with a common goal and shared governance. A commercial model where all the suppliers are more accountable and have 鈥榮kin in the game鈥�.

The best outcomes occur when all parties are prepared to engage in a spirt of openness. Where the ERP vendor can really get to understand the business pains relevant to each department and structure a commercial model that is linked to deliverables, outcomes and benefits. Mitigating risk and delivering a much greater return on investment and faster time to value.

3. Embrace and simplify working with commodity cloud hosting providers

While public sector organisations will always want the assurance of working with an experienced ERP vendor, they should also benefit from the flexibility and economy of scale that come from working with the some of the most innovative dominating cloud services 鈥� known as commodity cloud hosting providers or hyperscalers. In fact, many public sector organisations are already working with commodity cloud hosting providers; it makes sense for them to choose a partner who will continue to leverage and scale the exiting relationship.

There is incredible power behind the innovation and sustainability that commodity cloud hosting providers鈥� data centres deliver, which means data centre resources are easily accessible, cost effective, reliable, and scalable. That scalability means having an ERP partner that can grow with the organisation, deliver on a multi-cloud strategy for its ERP business applications or adapt to new requirements are strategically important considerations. This is especially essential in a fluctuating world.

4. Think adoption not adaptation

The civil service is not a single employer; individuals are contracted to their department. As policies and processes have diverged from organisation to organisation, so too have technology processes, as they have been customised to meet the specific needs of its users and department.

At first glance, the shared services strategy seems to put paid to the ability of organisations to use programmes customised to their organisation. Yet, while it鈥檚 true that the Strategy will emphasise common data standards and greatly increased data sharing across departments, a next generation, modular cloud ERP system will still allow departments to configure their solution to a way that works best for their organisation, while still working within the frameworks of the larger organisation / cluster.

5. Choose secure in-country services

The public sector has tight regulatory requirements which increasingly require secure in-country cloud services. This allows organisations to support the UK鈥檚 Critical National Infrastructure in areas such as healthcare, transport, education, policing, central and local government, and utilities.

The impact of this can鈥檛 be overstated. By modernising and transforming systems through cloud transformation, services are simplified, unnecessary costs removed, and capacity is created for staff, such as frontline workers, freed up to carry out crucial roles 鈥� without being waylaid by cumbersome and time-intensive administrative systems. In addition to driving significant efficiencies, harnessing public cloud with sensitive data will facilitate better insights, driving faster and improved decision making to transform citizen services.

The Shared Services Strategy is an ambitious undertaking but one that is both achievable and beneficial to everyone involved 鈥� the Government, the civil service and citizens. It has unlocked an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how the Government interacts with its citizens and points the way to a more enabled, empowered and ultimately progressive future of government services. We at 麻豆原创 welcome the Strategy and look forward to the opportunity to partner with you in delivering a successful programme.

Satpal Biant, Head of Public Sector, UK & Ireland

The post Five Considerations For Organisations Implementing The Government鈥檚 Shared Services Strategy appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.

To get a sense of the difference, at the height of the first lockdown last year, productivity in the South East, as measured by output per person, was roughly approximate to Wales and the North East of England in 鈥榥ormal鈥� times. These results aren鈥檛 solely the outcomes of a north-south divide. Scotland, for example, was actually up to 10% more productive than the UK average in recent years, so there are clearly other factors at play.

To address this disparity the UK Government has committed to 鈥榣evelling up鈥� the country; a broad and as yet not fully defined vision to devolve power and bring living standards and economic conditions in more deprived areas in line with those better off. But what does that really mean? This blog seeks to explore that question and explains why I believe technology will be key to the Government achieving its goals, in more ways than one.

What Is 鈥楲evelling Up鈥�?

The UK Government plans to publish a听Levelling Up White Paper听later this year which will clarify how some recently enacted policies and future plans tie together in a coherent strategy to 鈥渋mprove opportunity and boost livelihoods across the country鈥�.

While the paper should provide valuable detail on specific initiatives, we already know some key things about the plans. One of the most important components will be moving Government functions and jobs out of Whitehall and creating hubs across the country.

This initiative has already begun in some areas. This year Rishi Sunak announced that Darlington, a town in County Durham, would become home to a Northern hub for the Treasury to decentralise economic decision-making.

This trend extends beyond the direct reach of the Government too. Earlier this year the BBC announced plans to move 400 jobs and 拢700m in funding outside of London. The hope in both instances is that relocating existing jobs will help create new ones, generating new opportunities for those living in the local area, and encouraging greater diversity.

Why Technology Is Integral To Levelling Up Plans听

According to figures sourced from the UK Government鈥檚 Digital Economy Council, the UK technology sector grew tenfold from 2010-20. The technology sector has more than delivered on its promise of revolutionising the economy and will be one of the most critical economic drivers in years to come. To date, much of this growth has again been centred in London and the South East.

A similar pattern emerges when we look at regional differences in technology investment in the public sector. In fact, currently just three sub-regions of the UK (Oxford, Cambridge, and Inner West London) account for 41% of the public sector R&D spend.

In recognition of the disparity within the private sector, the UK Government recently launched its , a 拢375m fund that will invest in a selection of R&D intensive companies across the UK. Similar commitments will be needed for its regional public sector hubs.

Technology will also be key to levelling up plans in another sense. The Government not only wants to create more public sector jobs outside of London, but to create better and more productive jobs as well. Specifically, technology that can automate and augment certain parts of public sector jobs, will be vital to this.

The benefits are extensive and clear: whether automating the administration and delivery of welfare payments to citizens, thereby freeing up time for Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials to carry out more impactful work or giving HM prison staff secure handheld devices that enable them to better manage ward occupancy levels. Individual workers can benefit from digital upskilling as well. For example, rehabilitated prisoners can get access to digital technologies, such as e-learning and digital literacy tools, to help them reintegrate into the future economy with ease.

So, the Government鈥檚 levelling up aims around technology are twofold: invest in and build up the tech sector, including the technology used by the public sector to support growth, job creation, and economic dynamism, as well as bolstering the productivity of that public sector growth through digital and technological solutions.

Now Is The Time To Overcome Historic Obstacles

Education and upskilling 鈥� both of young people and of adults 鈥� will be key to success. One of the biggest challenges facing UK policymakers is that of the skills gap, where tech-savvy workers are less abundant outside of major cities and in particular London.

This divide can be bridged early on by facilitating equal access to digital educational environments to students across all regions. But the responsibility shouldn鈥檛 just fall to government. Tech companies can and should support the levelling up agenda and the need for increased digital skills by offering their products and training programmes to schools and universities. For example, programmes like 麻豆原创鈥檚 University Alliance, which includes University partners in Sheffield, Portsmouth and Lancashire, equip students with 麻豆原创 software skills and encourage relationships between industry, students, and researchers, accelerating innovation and insights for the digital future.

Companies in regions across the UK will be able to tap this digitally literate and purpose-focused talent pool to support their own technology development. This is crucial as continued investment in educational and upskilling opportunities will help ease the transition

Regional disparity has long been an issue in the UK. Politicians throughout the ages have made pledges and found the challenges to be too great, yet the urgency remains.

Today, in the aftermath of a world-changing pandemic and in the face of an urgent climate crisis, levelling up the UK is not just a moral imperative but a pragmatic one too. Investing in green and technology-led development in those less well-off regions will give the UK an opportunity to reshape its economy and society for the better.

Satpal Biant is head of Public Sector for 麻豆原创 UK&I.

The post The Government Wants To 鈥楲evel Up鈥� The UK: Tech Will Be Key In More Ways Than One appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.

This week marks a major milestone on the journey towards that growth. At 麻豆原创, we鈥檙e delighted to announce the launch of 麻豆原创 UK Data Cloud as part of a major quarter of a billion Euro investment that will not only develop new talent in vital industries but will see increased spending with the nation鈥檚 social enterprises.

At the heart of this commitment is the creation of a cloud offering that will provide secure in country services across the UK and is tailored to supercharge innovation in the public sector.

Organisations increasingly need cloud services that ensure their data is managed and stored in the country. Using our hyperscaler partnerships 鈥� such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud 鈥� with UK data centres, 麻豆原创鈥檚 in-country cloud will be primed to meet the tight regulatory requirements of the public sector and support the UK鈥檚 Critical National Infrastructure in areas such as healthcare, transport, education, policing, central and local government, and utilities.

Benefitting from its experience working with NS2 麻豆原创 will deliver a highly secure cloud service where personal and data all resides within the UK for the public and commercial sector. With the capability of handling Official Sensitive data and going live in early 2022 it will offer , 麻豆原创 Success Factors, 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform and 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud at launch then expanding across our portfolio.

Especially suited to the public sector, 麻豆原创 UK Data Cloud will also fulfil the requirements of regulated industries across the UK and those organisations who are looking to be close to their secure data at all times.

What 麻豆原创 UK Data Cloud Means For Citizens

The impact of this for public services can鈥檛 be overstated. By modernising and transforming systems through cloud transformation, time after time we鈥檝e seen services simplified, unnecessary costs removed and capacity created for staff, such as frontline workers, freed up to carry out crucial roles 鈥� without being waylaid by cumbersome and time-intensive administrative systems. In addition to driving significant efficiencies, harnessing public cloud with sensitive data will facilitate better insights, driving faster and improved decision making to transform citizen services.

These new, in country 麻豆原创 cloud services will improve the lives of UK citizens by enabling all parts of the public sector with the ability to quickly rollout essential digital solutions to meet the needs of our fluctuating world. Last year, we worked with the German government and Deutsche Telekom to launch the Corona Warn App, which focused on decentralised and anonymous infection tracing 鈥� meaning that there wasn鈥檛 a trade-off for citizens to have to choose between their health and their data privacy.

We also partnered with The Royal Volunteer Service to ease the burden on the National Health Service by providing vital non-medical care services to those self-isolating due to Covid-19 across the UK. Through using our technology the 600,000 who offered their support were provided with automated expense claims, to ensure they were reimbursed quickly.

Why 麻豆原创?

Organisations will uniquely benefit from both 麻豆原创鈥檚 innovation and our hyperscaler partners such as Microsoft, Google and AWS as they bring new services and capabilities online in the future.

Our platform is also designed for integration, openness and interoperability. This plays out in our partnerships with the likes of Microsoft, where RISE with 麻豆原创 business processes have been integrated into Teams 鈥� which is used by the majority of public sector organisations 鈥� so that users have access to a simplified experience that can organise meetings, see business insights, report and plan, all without having to switch applications.

On top of that, we are primed to enable end-to-end and facilitate new business models. This means that we are able to complement the public sector鈥檚 existing , that to date has extensively taken place in the front office, with back-office capabilities 鈥� and then integrate the two in order to deliver true end to end business process transformation. Our is a perfect example of how we can bring business process intelligence to an organisation and allow them to understand their existing systems, and how they can be enhanced, all without using a sticking plaster in between.

Measuring The Real-World Benefits

What do these developments mean in the real world? Well, the impact of these innovations could have a major impact on the way that public services are delivered.

At a time when public sector organisations are under pressure to streamline costs and resource, while at the same time citizen demands are continuing to increase, having the digital tools to enable greater efficiencies and declutter services could be truly transformative.

Secure Public Cloud enables organisations to more effectively put this data to work facilitating integration, collaboration and best use of public assets and facilities. It can be as simple as being able to identify where a school bus service has low capacity and could be used to support patient transport when ambulances are used but not necessary. It could significantly improve the management and training supplied to teachers across the country or simply and importantly giving police offices more time to be on the beat over completing paperwork.

The ultimate goal of this offering is to empower people with the capacity to fundamentally improve the level of service the public sector can deliver to citizens. Industry has been reaping the rewards of public cloud with its sensitive data for many years. Today鈥檚 launch will be a catalyst for the public sector to deliver citizen services that will enhance the nation鈥檚 health, education and security.

For more detail on our public sector work, read here: 听

Satpal Biant is head of Public Sector for 麻豆原创 UK&I.

The post How Cloud Capabilities In The UK Will Transform The Public Sector appeared first on 麻豆原创 UK News Center.