Data analytics and cybersecurity pushed cloud off the top spot for technology investment plans by government CIOs in 2019, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc.
Those investments are likely to be limited though: only 17 per cent of government CIOs plan to increase their investment, compared with 34 percent of CIOs in other industries.
No IT, No Business Resources
A hefty 45 percent of public sector CIOs meanwhile reported that they lack the IT and business resources required to execute on their investments.
It may surprise some readers that 55 percent do have the resources: in the UK local authorities have faced a 49.1 percent real-term reduction in government funding since 2010, according to [pdf] the National Audit Office and budgets are tight.
(Plenty are nonetheless showcasing some real digital innovation, with the Greater London Authority for example planning a platform that would let residents assess planning applications via a 3D digital model).
Gartner’s 2019 CIO Agenda Survey collated responses from 3,102 CIO respondents in 89 countries and across major industries, including 528 government CIOs. (Government respondents are segmented into national or federal; state or province; local; and defence and intelligence, to identify trends specific to each tier.)
“Taking advantage of data is at the heart of digital government — it’s the central asset to all that government oversees and provides,” said Rick Howard, VP analyst at Gartner.
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He added: “[Leveraging] data strategically in real time will significantly improve government’s ability to deliver services, despite increased strain on finite resources.”
AI meanwhile took the lead as the top “game-changing” technology for government CIOs for 2019, as cited by 27 percent of respondents.
This was followed by data analytics (22 percent) and cloud technologies (19 percent). Cloud dropped from first across all levels of government last year, to third overall in this year’s survey. Among government respondents, 10 percent have already deployed an AI solution, 39 percent intend to deploy in the next one to two years, and an additional 36 percent intend to deploy an AI solution within the next two to three years.
