Over the next few years, governments will face difficult economic challenges. For example, local government councils in the UK need to save between 4% and 17% of their operational costs while maintaining outstanding levels of services. This requires the development of permanent services and resources to meet citizen’s expectations.
Despite the apparent complexity of the task, adopting a fit-to-purpose approach can help councils achieve service excellence while saving millions. These savings amount to four to 10 times the investment required to put in place long-term solutions.
Unfortunately, traditional techniques are mostly point solutions that target isolated improvements, ignoring other changes that are currently taking place or planned for the future. Such techniques provide some local benefits. However, in a short time, they will ultimately end up in the same situation, with stove-piped systems and sub-optimal solutions.
The development of enhanced services and new capabilities needs to be governed so that they all contribute consistently towards the optimum future of the council and the citizens it serves. Enterprise architecture (EA), coupled with System Thinking, is the best way to develop new services and redesign existing ones consistently in a complex and changing economic and political context. A holistic approach to services through EA allows councils to better meet their goals. Councils, as well as business and IT leaders, can generate short-term benefits while improving agility and performance for long-term needs. […]
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