A recently completed global research project on IT outsourcing attitudes and practice also highlighted some key challenges facing the public sector:
• 69% of public sector business decision-makers say doing more with less is their key challenge this year;
• 83% regard cost savings as their top strategic priority for 2011.
Public sector IT managers are also acutely aware of the pressure. In line with private sector peers, 48% highlight finding more cost-effective IT infrastructure as their top priority, followed by effectively managing and prioritising IT demand, then delivering faster data access across the organisation.
Despite this, IT managers in the public sector say that only 7% of their IT infrastructure is outsourced compared to 19% in the private sector.
Historically, owning and operating your own IT infrastructure was a differentiator. However, with the growth of the IT services sector, the operation of the underlying infrastructure for these services is most often best left to companies that execute these tasks on a massive and, hence, more efficient scale.
The shift in IT procurement is predicted to happen, with public sector respondents expecting to outsource 64% of their infrastructure within 10 years, approaching the predicted private sector level of 67%.
Much of this change will result in applications for government moving to cloud environments. In fact, 59% of government or public sector IT teams are already using or expect to use cloud for enterprise applications within five years.
Public discussions on the G-cloud and the actions of governments in Europe show that the shift has begun.
A key barrier to ensuring more efficient and effective IT operations could be that decision-makers in public office appear to lag behind their private sector counterparts in their understanding of new ways to purchase IT to drive efficiencies. Only 8% of service managers claim they know exactly what cloud computing is and the benefits it can offer in the current economic climate.
Service managers, however, do see the potential for development, with 64% agreeing they could change the way they plan if they could reduce or eliminate the capital cost of IT infrastructure.
Due diligence and a strong vision will help you move towards the cloud, allowing better tax payer spend and a better level of citizen reach.
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