Modernising government services

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The UK government knows that delivering better results for all citizens is essential. That’s why government departments are constantly striving to modernise services. However, there are many major challenges to overcome such as programme silos, regulatory burdens and cyber security risks not to mention the cost of maintaining aging IT systems.

Of course, cloud technologies are already playing a significant part in the government’s strategy to modernise services. But cloud brings its own unique set of issues, like how to effectively manage multiple cloud environments.

Crucially, cloud technology must be adopted in the right way with the right level of planning for modernisation to work long-term. That’s where IBM comes in: we’ve helped thousands of companies and government organisations to successfully plan and build a future in the cloud.

You may think modernisation is an IT conversation, but don’t be misled. It’s all about mission improvement. After all, modernised systems will ultimately help the government to deliver better services, ranging from healthcare through to law enforcement and all points in between.

Making the mission more effective

IBM’s approach is designed to help the UK government to adopt three key strategies:

1) Modernise the stack

• Be selective – It’s not just a case of moving everything to the cloud, especially when it comes to legacy IT systems. For instance, it’s hard to improve and maintain systems focused on functional solutions, making them ideal candidates for the cloud, whereas complex application code needs to be leveraged rather than discarded.
• Extend existing investments – Legacy assets can be exposed and extended using APIs, while AI-based development tools can be used to gauge the impact of proposed changes to core business applications.

2) Embrace cloud solutions

All our cloud migration projects cover the following points:

• Determine the right cloud adoption strategy – with a clear rationale for digitally transforming workloads and applications, including data and security requirements.
• Embrace hybrid cloud platforms – while consistently managing applications to improve security, efficiency and governance.
• Refactor applications – to enable continuous development and release with minimal incidents.
• Manage public, private and multi-cloud environments – at any scale.

3) Mitigate delivery risk

This third element will require new ways of working for the UK government in the following areas:

• Strategy – Modernisation decisions mustn’t begin with IT. Business requirements and mission delivery come first.
• Partnership – Work with a trusted and experienced partner. We’ve been the strategic partner for some of the world’s largest cloud migrations and we’ve completed over 100,000 migrations
• Design – The government needs to use data to make better decisions and rethink processes to prioritise end-user needs. Design thinking is the first step towards achieving this.
• Development – To develop IT solutions that are right for the end user and deliver lasting modernisation, the government needs to adopt agile, DevOps and DevSecOps methodologies.

Making modernisation work

At IBM, we have a wealth of experience when it comes to modernisation. We know that the UK government needs a smart and flexible strategy in line with its missions.

The government doesn’t need to migrate every application and system to the cloud. Instead, departments need to assess their technology and identify applications and systems built on outdated, unhelpful technology. Then any useful aging technology can be exploited with advanced tools to maximise its value.

Workloads and applications ready to migrate to the cloud need the right approach. Government departments need access to emerging technology for increased application effectiveness. In addition, cyber security must be built into the process up front. It should never be an afterthought.

The entire IT modernisation effort needs to be built on the right methods and techniques to mitigate delivery risk and deliver the best outcomes for users. It’s this approach that we encourage the government to take to enhance mission effectiveness and drive successful, lasting IT modernisation (plus reduced architecture vendor lock-in risk).

IBM can help the UK government to confidently integrate data and cloud services from any source to meet mission needs.

Read IBM’s complete report – Roadmap to Modernising Government Services

This blog provides an overview of the key points covered in IBM’s tried-and-tested modernisation roadmap. You can download the full report here.