How does IT strategy apply to the public sector?
A primary reason for strategic planning or strategy development is to position a business in the market or industry and to develop a competitive advantage. By defining a strategy, one is developing a plan to achieve a certain objective or goal and/or find a solution to a problem. Therefore, the fundamental question in strategic planning is “how can we position our business more competitively in our market?” The strategy then defines actions to be taken to achieve the desired competition.
In the public sector there are either no competitive market conditions, or the conditions are minimized. This begs the question of what importance strategy plays in this environment. Taking this further, does an IT department in the public sector need to be concerned about strategy? If strategies are developed, are they strategies or rather aspirations? Driver (2014) provides an example of how aspirations can muddy the contents of a strategy.
The development of a strategy in the public sector requires rather different drivers than competitiveness. These drivers are not found in statements about what a public sector organization wants to be, but rather by examining the core business processes. The core processes are the ones that contribute the essential value of the public organization to the community of recipients who receives their services. For example, the delivery of water and sewer services by a municipality to its residents is a core service. The strategic plan therefore should consider how to improve these services, make the delivery more cost-effective, ensure high-quality work, and facilitate feedback from residents.
In extending this discussion to IT strategy, management should develop a sound understanding of what core processes its public organization is providing and who are the recipients of these services. Once these processes are documented, a formulated strategy identifies how the production and delivery of these services can be improved. Evaluating different solutions based on benefits and costs is in essence the IT strategy.
Using the utilities example, an IT strategy could focus on more efficient meter-reading processes, automatic consumption calculations from these readings, and mobile payment options with dashboards that show histograms of consumption. It could also address better customer communication by utilizing social networks. The IT strategy does not just look at one particular component of a process but takes a holistic view of the complete business scenario.
In many cases, implementing the whole scenario in a business year might be too involved. For this reason, the IT strategy plan proposes a high-level delivery schedule.
Developing a good IT strategy requires that IT management be involved and aware of where the public organization tends to go. This direction is most likely developed by the board or council. To ensure the development of an IT strategy that is pragmatic and will deliver value, there must be excellent communication channels between IT management and board members. IT management must make sure that technology is viewed as contributing significantly to the improvement of the overall service delivery and value generation. This can only be achieved if IT management proactively engages in the business strategy discussion
An IT strategy is essential and, when developed properly, will provide significant benefits to a public organization. The strategy needs to be driven from the core processes that generate the distinct value of the public organization and must align to the direction the organization’s board or council is considering. IT management has a major part to play in contributing to this direction and must work continuously on being considered as delivering valuable input to its design.