government meets its mobile future seven essential strategies for state leaders · 2020-03-18 ·...

Government meets its mobile future Seven essential strategies for state leaders

Table of contents

Introduction

A moment of truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Seven guidelines to help you get started

1. Embrace disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2. Think big. Start small. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3. Make the case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

4. What’s in it for them? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

5. Play it cool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

6. Be agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

7. Serve and protect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Conclusion

The new normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Government meets its mobile future Seven essential strategies for state leaders 1

A moment of truthNow that smartphones, tablets, and mobile technologies have been

ingrained in our everyday lives, state governments face a moment of

truth: Step up or fall behind.

2

For cash-strapped agencies in a still-sluggish economy, the challenge of going mobile might seem too big. But it can be a huge opportunity.

With modern, flexible tools, agencies can cut costs and boost efficiency. They can build stronger connections with citizens. They can provide information and services when and where they’re needed most. They can transform the way state employees work and how they connect with each other.

There are almost as many ways to start the mobile journey as there are government agencies. It’s not uncommon to see multiple, independent initiatives within the same state. Some leaders are early adopters; others take a wait-and-see attitude. Some think the risks that come with mobile outweigh any potential rewards; others think they can’t spend the money right now. Many are simply unsure on how to begin.

Despite all the challenges, the technology is here, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. As states grapple with shrinking budgets and greater pressure to provide better services, mobile can open up new, more efficient ways to satisfy constituent demands. This isn’t about the worn-out promise of doing “more with less.” This is about doing it differently.

The moment of truth is now. It’s time to get started.


Embrace disruption

You’ve already imagined mobile technology speeding up

or streamlining the way you work. Now, imagine it changing

the very nature of the work you do.

For example, police departments could arm troopers with real-time data as they race to an emergency location. Or mobile solutions could help state inspectors and engineers access, collect, and report information—including audio and video files—in the field. Think about it: They wouldn’t have to write down information and then waste time traveling back to the office just to type up and file the report. Instead, they could share it with colleagues instantly.

1

4

Did you know?

Sixty-eight percent of people

place their mobile devices

next to their beds while

sleeping at night.1

Now take it a step further. What if your mobile network were tied to smart sensors that monitor air or water quality, or traffic? Or could link to data that comes from devices embedded in medical equipment, cars, homes, and other places? Think new levels of visibility. Think data going right where it’s needed, right away. Think more than just a streamlined process—imagine an entirely new one.

Technologies like these are already in play, just begging for more widespread adoption. Apps like New York State’s 511 service offer real-time traffic and transit data, or even travel times for bridges and tunnels. Instead of phoning in a pothole, a citizen can use a GPS-enabled phone to register its location instantly—and even include a photo.

Using mobile to make your job easier is only a first step. The next step is using it to redefine and enhance your job. The challenge is seeing what isn’t there yet, then making it happen.

6

Mobile gets rail in a big wayWith more than one million riders annually, Amtrak is investing in mobile technology not only to improve the way it interacts with passengers but to change the way conductors do business—from collecting tickets to maintenance.

The rail service offers a free app that helps passengers with scheduling, ticketing, and check-in. They can earn stamps as they travel or link achievements to social networks that tie back to Amtrak’s reward and loyalty program.

For conductors, Amtrak developed a solution combining a mobile app with a magnetic stripe reader to help process tickets, perform fraud validation, and even feed into a model that tracks customers and their locations on the train. The solution can help them identify which doors to open during stops or arrange for the right numbers of wheelchairs at the right place when passengers depart, improving service and efficiency.

Conductors can also report faulty toilets, damaged seats, or other incidents in real time through their devices, shortening the time it takes to repair those items—rather than wait to begin the process at the end of a route.2


2Think big.

Start small.

Considering how far mobile has come in such

a short time, it’s easy to let your imagination

run wild. Until reality catches up, that is. An

all-encompassing “Land of Tomorrow” is an

awfully difficult thing to write a work plan for.

So take small bites at first.

What does this mean? Start with one clear idea. Focus on low-risk opportunities first. Add one chunk of start-up funding. Mix in one existing stakeholder group—either constituents or employees—that’s hungry for something new. Stir.

Trying to make a new tool work effectively across every mobile platform, such as iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices, adds complexity. So don’t make that a must-have right out of the gate. Start with one, build your foundation, and plan to expand.

And if your idea doesn’t go as planned, don’t worry. It didn’t cost you much, and you can try something else. In mobile, as with lunch from a food truck, you learn from your achievements and your mistakes.

The point is to get started. Build confidence. Each step is a lesson. And as you accumulate bite-sized victories, you’ll look back and see that you’ve been building toward that big vision all along.

8

Are you ready?

What issues are most relevant

or of greatest concern to your

community or user audience?

What function or activity

will make the greatest

impact on your audience?

What will generate the

most business value?

Do you have a strategy in

place to create rapid

prototypes, test market

assumptions, use customer

feedback, and launch ideas

quickly in the marketplace?


3Make the case

If your first mobile effort is effective and

compelling, it can stand as a selling point for

future initiatives. Choose wisely. Consider the

business case for the change you propose.

Factor in its influence and value. Determine

the impact to the mission.

Start with a clear, simple goal. What do you want to accomplish? Lower costs? Improve productivity of your employees? Provide better services to your constituents? Narrow your choice to something you feel comfortable doing.

10

It’s usually a good idea to start with a low-risk project. It could be an app to let anglers buy a fishing license anytime. It could be a way to help citizens make appointments. Or it could be something that helps state examiners more efficiently record data during site visits.

The effective use of mobile can give your ops a quick boost. For example, an app can help constituents get information on their own quickly and efficiently without help from call center representatives. In turn, employees could shift their focus to higher-value tasks or more complicated cases. Mobile lets you do more now with what you have now.

Whichever direction you choose, start by evaluating a business problem that needs a solution. Mobile is cool, and it’s tempting to do new things because you can. But in the budget-strained, mission-critical public sector, “should” has to come before “could.”

Are you ready?

How have you changed

your business strategy and

plan to line up with your

constituents’ needs?

What’s your plan for

identifying all stakeholders

and getting their buy-in

in supporting a mobile

development project?

What content or

information can you

deliver to constituents

that would make your

mobile app valuable?

What’s your strategy if

your project fails?


4What’s in it for them?

Let’s say you developed an

app or solution for a popular

activity, or put a mobile

wrapper around an existing

web offering. It worked great.

But when you launched it, the

response was … meh. Why?

It’s likely you didn’t think about

the end-user experience.

Just as in the commercial world, governments should work to deliver engaging, intuitive, effortless, and gratifying experiences to constituents and employees. In short, you need to step into a mobile user’s shoes and focus on usability and design from their POV. It’s not just about point and click, but also touch, swipe, talk, look, and feel.

Ask basic questions: What do they need to know? What do they want to do? How do they expect it to work? And don’t just ask them hypothetically. If you want real answers, reach out to real people. What works for law enforcement may not work for parking enforcement. The mobile user experience for an agricultural inspector may be quite different from what a building inspector wants and needs.

Think beyond content. Consider performance and speed. Security. Navigation. Data synchronization. Exploit device capabilities, such as camera and GPS—or even the accelerometer. Provide updates and enhancements. Attention to every aspect and angle can result in a better mobile experience for users.

If you’re unsure how to start, ask your users. Check out what other agencies have done, or compare notes with peers in other states.


Did you know?

More than 300,000 apps

have been developed over

the past three years and

apps have been downloaded

10.9 billion times.3

14

A mobile mentality Responsive design is an increasingly popular way for private sector and state government agencies to give mobile users a better experience. This approach automatically reformats the layout of a website to the size and shape of the screen on any end-user device—from smartphones to tablets, laptops to desktops. The result is a better and faster experience for mobile users.

For example, the California Technology Agency is building basic, no-frills mobile websites that can adapt to any operating system or device. Users don’t have to download anything to view the sites. The approach is saving the state time and money.4


5Play it cool

If you’re not going to make mobile

tools and apps that are attractive

and polished, why bother? Boring

isn’t a safe play—it’s an app killer.

Be bold. Set yourself apart. Be cool.

Cool is about colors, textures, fonts, and clever functionality. Yet aesthetics is a means, not an end—because cool is also about performance, staying fresh and up to date with emerging technologies. A mobile app that’s appealing, clever, easy to use, and informative will see more use. It’s that simple. If people don’t get that from you, they won’t stop to think about why government is different from business. They’ll just stop.

You don’t need to rebel completely to add spice to your mobile tools and apps. Function comes first. But it won’t necessarily cost more to inject a little spirit. Nor is it a frill. Anything that boosts a solution’s chances of adoption is an investment in its effectiveness.

Invent new ways for users to interact with information. Pay greater attention to detail. Use more innovative features. If people enjoy using what you give them, they’ll use it over and over again.

Did you know?

Seventy-one percent of

global mobile users expect

websites to load as quickly,

almost as quickly, or faster

on their mobile devices as

on their desktops.5


Mobile hits the roadBoston motorists can download the city’s Street Bump app, which uses their accelerometer-equipped smartphones to identify and automatically report the exact locations of potholes via GPS.

With this app, the city hopes to save money and eliminate the need for engineers to survey 806 miles of roadway.6 The $80,000 cost to develop the app was less than half of what the city spends on traditional survey techniques every year.7


6We all know mobile

technology is moving

fast. New platforms here.

Changing expectations

there. For government

agencies, keeping up

with the Joneses might

mean stepping outside

their happy places.

Think of mobile as a vital component of your future work environment. You won’t know everything about your future mobile needs, but you can make smart infrastructure investments. This can give you the capacity you may need later on. For example, it may make sense to use one technology platform for your employees and another to provide services to constituents.

Mobile won’t do away with the legacy systems you already operate. Those are big investments with long lifecycles, and they won’t transform to meet every six-month planning horizon. So make your mobile strategy work with them. Operate with one foot in the present and one in the future. That’s real agility.

Agility is also about changing course if you see trouble ahead. Maybe an app or program isn’t meeting your usability, savings, or revenue expectations. Or you might want to expand something that’s working well. Sometimes change is good and necessary. Just don’t take too long to decide.

But agility is more than a mindset. It’s also a methodology. The traditional “waterfall”

development model may take too long in a mobile world. Instead, agile development is iterative and flexible. Developers engage users early and reap valuable feedback that can lead to rapid changes and enhancements. That can translate into lower costs, greater efficiency, and higher quality.

And while your agency might rely on a multi-year technology spending plan, mobile runs on a much shorter timeframe, usually in months. Your plans should reflect that. It’s a different way to approach development.

Be agile

20

Are you ready?

What’s the capacity of your back-end systems and

infrastructure to integrate mobile technologies?

Have you created a test environment for multiple

platforms and emerging mobile technologies?

22

There’s a developer for thatAs part of the state transportation department, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority provides dozens of apps, including a couple that can help travelers locate nearby bus stops or offer real-time tracking of commuter rail lines through GPS- or Wi-Fi-enabled devices.

Yet the state didn’t develop any of them. Instead, through a licensing agreement, the state allows

anyone—including the commercial sector and private citizens—to use open, real-time, and static traffic data to build apps for consumers.

Through this approach, Massachusetts saves money, time, and manpower by leaving development up to others. And while the open policy means several apps may offer the same service, state officials reason that consumers might find the most useful ones.4


Serve and protect

Mobile users—employees and citizens—want easy and quick

access to systems through their mobile devices. They expect

security and privacy are already built in. Mobile technology brings

its own features to these issues, and that requires a different

approach. It begs a few questions, too:

How concerned should I be about viruses and other malware? How can I protect data from being hacked? What if a device is lost or stolen? How can I protect the privacy of mobile users?

These issues may seem challenging, but mobile security is achievable and feasible. An effective strategy takes a risk-based approach and involves security specialists from the start. Use industry-standard mobile computing policies, practices, and protocols. Train your employees. Take cues from leading consumer applications. Centralize various mobile initiatives. Share experiences among different departments.

You’ll still have to think hard about what data should be made available on such devices or who should get access. But mobile security is an enhancement, not an obstacle. It offers innovative tools for biometric authentication, digital signatures, one-time passwords, and use of geo-location services. With mobile integrated into your infrastructure, you can evolve beyond passwords and enhance security across your systems through multi-factor or risk-based authentication.

Like every developing technology, mobile introduces some new risks. But it also offers an extraordinary set of tools and capabilities to mitigate those risks and enhance your overall security.

7

24

Are you ready?

What strategies have you developed to

strengthen the security of data accessed

through a mobile device?

What mobile device management policy do

you have in place? Are you permitting

employees to use their own devices?

How often are you reviewing and updating

your security policies?

26

Mobilizing the caseworkerIn Florida, more than 2,300 foster care caseworkers were given camera-enabled smartphones and laptops. With this capability, they can remotely take time-and-location-stamped images, which are immediately uploaded to the state’s online database. They can also provide other critical data, notes, and observations. All of this helps them reduce time spent on paperwork and better manage their workloads.8

With the adoption of mobile case-management tools in Miami-Dade County, officials there reported a 30 percent increase in home visits, timely reporting, and better compliance with state requirements.9


Fact: Mobile technology

is changing society

and promises to keep

evolving for years to

come. People expect

immediate service and

instant information.

While state governments

may understand and

acknowledge this, it’s

not enough. They should

act to stay responsive

and relevant in this

new world.

Leading agencies are embracing and taking advantage of mobile. They’re adaptive. They understand mobile isn’t a shiny new toy but rather a method for making a super-sized impact on their various roles. They use mobile not only to change the way they do business but also to take it to an even higher level. Merge mobile with cloud computing, big data, and analytics and—voila!—you can be even more effective than ever.

With mobile, you can reach a wider audience, stay connected 24/7, tailor services, and improve citizen deliberation. Employees can collaborate like never before, improving their efficiency.

In government, it’s not about competition. It’s about fulfilling your mission. It’s about helping citizens, business, and society.

Mobile can help you accomplish that. It can spur innovation across government services even as you face daunting pressures and challenges, whether they’re about budgets, regulations, accountability, or reputation.

So … what are you waiting for?

The new normal


Contacts

Jason SalzettiDeloitte DigitalDeloitte Consulting LLPSan Francisco, [email protected]

Roy MathewUS State Technology StrategyDeloitte Consulting LLPSan Jose, [email protected]

Art StephensUS State Technology StrategyDeloitte Consulting LLPCamp Hill, [email protected]

Lona CooperUS State Technology StrategyDeloitte Consulting LLPCamp Hill, [email protected]

Endnotes1. Time. Aug. 15, 2012. “Your Wireless Life: Results of Time’s Mobility Poll.” Retrieved from http://www.time.com/

time/interactive/0,31813,2122187,00.html

2. White, M. & Briggs, B. (2012). “Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for digital business. A Federal Perspective.” Retrieved from http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/Federal/us_fed_Federal_Tech_Trends_2012_062112.pdf

3. Digital Buzz Blog. 2012, July 9. Retrieved from http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-2012-mobile-growth-statistics/

4. Collins, H. (2012, April 25). “States Aim to Launch More Mobile Apps.” Government Technology. Retrieved from http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/States-Aim-to-Launch-More-Mobile-Apps.html

5. Compuware Corp. news release. (2011, July 19). “New Study Reveals the Mobile Web Disappoints Global Consumers.” Retrieved from http://www.compuware.com/d/release/592528/new-study-reveals-the-mobile-web-disappoints-global-consumers

6. Fox News, “’Street Bump’ app detects potholes, alerts Boston city officials,” July 20, 2012.

7. Ovide, S. (2012, June 12) “Tapping ‘Big Data’ to Fill Potholes.” Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303444204577460552615646874.html

8. Deloitte Consulting LLP. (2011). “Letting Go of the Status Quo – A Playbook for Transforming State Government.” p.104.

9. AT&T. “Our Kids of Miami-Dade Case Study.” Retrieved from http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/en_US/popups/video/our-kids.jsp

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