With the United States and the rest of the world emerging from the shadow of pandemic to reengage with whatever “normal” life brings next, demands for how government should provide vital services to citizens – and the IT resources needed to improve delivery of them – have changed the service equation for good.
The Federal government is coming out of the pandemic period having learned one very hard-won lesson: citizens in the modern digital world have entered a new age of expectations and requirements for service delivery – on par with what the private sector provides – and there’s no turning back the clock.
Easier, faster, more efficient, more secure – those are the service delivery improvement demands.
The good news? The Feds are listening. Just a few months into the new administration, Congress and Federal IT policy makers are lining up billions in new investments for IT modernization and a next-gen jump to zero trust security architectures that will be foundational to improving citizen service.
Even better, citizen service and how to make it better sit at the very top of Federal CIO Clare Martorana’s to-do list. The newly installed government tech leader said in her first major policy speech in late May that improving citizen services ranks right up there with cybersecurity and replacing legacy systems as her top priorities.
The not so good news? One key aspect of ensuring that Federal IT systems responsible for delivering services to citizens don’t crash – or if they do, give managers plenty of warning to make necessary fixes – is lacking.
That’s where IT Operations Management (ITOM) technologies come into play. Research from MeriTalk, underwritten by ServiceNow and executed during the height of the pandemic reveals a sobering gulf between Federal IT managers’ desire for ITOM capabilities that help predict IT problems impacting citizen service, and their current ability to predict and prevent those kinds of IT problems.
The research relies on input from 100 Federal IT decision makers and finds that 71 percent say the pandemic has brought to light critical shortcomings in their agency’s IT operations management. But at the same time, only 40 percent are “very confident” in their agency’s ability to predict and prevent IT mishaps that will impact citizen service.
Further, 88 percent of those surveyed reported service outages at their agency that led to delays in citizen services, and a nearly equal share rated good IT operations management as “vital” to the service delivery mission. While a recognition for the need for better ITOM clearly is top of mind for Federal IT decisions makers, execution on putting those capabilities plainly lags. Only 17 percent of those surveyed said their agencies have fully implemented IT operations management.
ITOM progress and capabilities may well be a pointer to whether the Federal government can make good on citizen service goals. To get the full story on ITOM gaps and recommendations from Federal IT leaders, download the full report.