Government summary
What’s different this year is a momentum and convergence of factors that haven’t existed together before. Everywhere we look, we’re seeing agencies across all levels of government adopt more customer-centric and integrated approaches to service delivery. The future is here, and it’s digital, citizen-centric, and more accessible.
Calls to modernize and reinvent government aren’t new. Over 25 years ago, the federal government released a visionary report called Access America: Reengineering Through Information Technology. The report laid out innovative proposals for how to make government work better for its people. Its authors saw technology as the great enabler for reinvention, as a catalyst to a brighter future.
Fast forward to today, the need to modernize how government delivers vital, critical services to communities across the United States (US) and globally is still front and center. Everywhere we look, we’re seeing more and more agencies across all levels of government adopt more customer-centric and integrated approaches to service delivery. This progress can be slower than we would like, slowed by past hierarchical organizational cultures and intentional fiscal controls essential to ensuring the responsible use of public monies.
As we look to 2024, we believe the landscape is changing. What’s different this year is the momentum that propels us forward and a convergence of factors that haven’t existed together before. This momentum comes from greater interoperability that we’ve already built, providing models for others to adapt. It’s accelerated by learnings from the pandemic and funded by the trillions of federal dollars still available for the government to use for infrastructure investment and modernization projects, economic stimulus, and pandemic recovery.
This push also stems from the federal government adopting a customer-first approach to its work, including hiring of more chief experience officers. Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) led the way by establishing a permanent Office of Customer Experience charged with improving how the agency delivers services to the over one billion people it interacts with each year. This renewed commitment to rebuild trust in government and prioritize customer-focused service delivery is in direct response to federal policies, such as Executive Order 14058, “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.”
We’re at a turning point where technology, data, and design are converging to enable a faster and more profound transformation of government services. The potential is vast: chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and unified citizen portals guiding people through complex bureaucracy, health and human services professionals gaining insights to identify at-risk individuals and connecting them with services, to name a few examples we’re seeing.
In 2024, there are many opportunities to build on the progress of the past and use technology and data to create a more responsive, transparent, and effective government that places citizens at the heart of everything.
The future is here, and it’s digital, citizen-centric, and more accessible.
Our 2024 government outlook is written for our public servants across all levels of government. You wake up every day in service to your mission and the people who reside in our communities. This outlook is written to give you a jump start on the year ahead.
We’ve broken down the biggest obstacles and opportunities by the mission areas you serve across government.
Public finance
Public transportation
Justice and public safety
Public utilities
Workforce and economic development
Health and human services
We observed some cross-cutting opportunities available to all of us across mission areas to:
Seize the moment for customer experience (CX) investments and holistic solutions: These investments aim to establish a digital-first government that’s efficient and cost-effective, placing citizens at the heart of its modernization efforts and building trust along the way. There’s a strong focus on inclusive design and equitable access. Check out examples of how agencies are applying CX to improve service delivery in the public utilities and health and human service sections.
Be more responsive to community needs by engaging them earlier in designing government services: Proactively listen to feedback, understand pain points, and design solutions that meet people’s expectations and preferences. A great example of this is the paradigm shift happening in public transportation, referred to as community-oriented transportation. Read more about it in our Public Transportation section.
Approach modernization of digital and cloud initiatives holistically with interoperability in mind. Take the top 10 priorities for state CIOs, issued by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). We believe these priorities are interdependent: you can’t implement one without the other. Take the digital government priority as an example. Digitizing citizen experiences requires cloud services and modern data management practices. It requires a workforce with the skills and expertise to manage these new cloud-based platforms and assets. Identity and Access Management (IAM) ensures that digital services are secure and accessible for all users. See examples in our Workforce & Economic Development section.
Embrace innovative, emerging technologies through continued use of public-private and cross-agency collaboration. We’ve seen how greater collaboration across business, government, and nonprofits speeds up the adoption of these innovations and builds interoperability. See examples of this in our justice and public safety section.
Consider responsible, ethical use of AI and machine learning: The integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and robotic process automation (RPA) into government operations poses ethical challenges. These challenges need to be addressed with care and transparency to maintain public trust. We’ve woven in AI/ML use cases for you to consider throughout each of the mission area sections that follow.
We believe the trends shaping 2024 create an opportunity to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. The road ahead will require bold, tough choices. Let’s redefine what’s possible and go beyond the expected.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts about what lies ahead for governments in 2024 and beyond. Find a simple form after the conclusion to get in touch.
