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Digital Government During and After COVID-19

Scott Dulman
October 22, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced government organizations to reassess their strategies, plans, and aspirations for digital transformation. Despite the uncertainty, IT leaders must quickly identify and act on strategies and plans that lead to positive outcomes. In many cases, governments will expand the role of digital technologies in service and program delivery.

Insights from Appian's Public Sector Leader

Jason Adolf, Appian Industry Vice President, Global Public Sector, recently spoke with Federal News Network about how agencies are using full stack automation to accelerate digital transformation. The current environment is forcing agencies to make changes at an unprecedented speed.

Federal agencies need a fast, flexible way to bring IT, business and program staff together to ensure that new and overhauled systems meet program, outcome, accountability, and government efficiency requirements. To quickly respond to these challenges, agencies are adopting full stack automation.

"We're seeing now more of a comfort level with what we call full stack automation ñ low-code, plus robotic process automation, plus artificial intelligence, to assist an agency and assist a workforce in not only reducing administrivia in their work, but doing work faster." - Jason Adolf

The Appian platform offers significant flexibility over traditional solutions by enabling the rapid design, development, and deployment of mission critical systems. With a single view of all relevant information across systems and data sources, organizations can increase productivity and improve program outcomes. They can also deploy secure, scalable applications with full mobile and offline capabilities in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment.

Listen to Jason Adolf's interview on Federal News Network and read Tom Temin's accompanying article, "How to use low code tools to change, adapt and modernize".

Gartner's Post-Pandemic Digital Government Recommendations

The pandemic has changed government priorities, forcing agency leaders to re-evaluate digital transformation strategies and plans. Some organizations are embracing digital transformation and accelerating the adoption of new technologies. In several scenarios, organizations will expand the role of digital government platforms.

Gartner offers government technology leaders options, through the use of scenario planning, to keep digital transformation moving forward. Read Gartner's Post-Pandemic Scenarios: The Future of Digital Government Transformation to learn how to:

    • Conduct security and CX audits to mitigate risk and close performance gaps in applications and services that were quickly deployed during the crisis

    • Launch an agile automation program that uses RPA, iPaaS, iBPMS and low-code platforms

    • Accelerate the adoption of new technologies and embrace digital transformation

Gartner advises government CIOs leading the transition to digital government to assess all strategy-driven initiatives, both planned and in progress. They can then choose to continue, suspend, or cancel existing initiatives while identifying new opportunities. IT leaders should also advance the progress of automation within their organizations by launching an agile automation program that combines robotic process automation (RPA), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Intelligent Business Process Management Suites (iBPMS) and low-code platforms based on speed-to-value delivery.

Appian Digital Government Platform in the Post-COVID-19 World

A proven approach to successful government digital transformation is introducing low-code automation, DevSecOps, and Agile to build new applications that execute on top of legacy systems. This allows IT to be more responsive to rapidly changing needs and reduces technical debt while quickly delivering value, new services, and cost savings. Modernizing government technology with a low-code automation platform gives IT the power to accelerate digital transformation projects.

The Appian platform combines RPA and artificial intelligence (AI) with iBPMS, Application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaaS), and low-code development to deliver digital government initiatives with a high ROI. By adding Appian RPA and AI to their applications, government agencies can dramatically improve operational efficiency, citizen experience, and staff engagement.

Check out Jason Adolf's podcast on Federal News Network and visit Appian Government Solutions to discover how government organizations use low-code automation to improve and accelerate acquisition modernization, logistics and asset management, regulatory and statutory compliance, organization transformation, and citizen experience.