By Telecom Lead Team:
Governments across continue to struggle with the implementation of
whole-of-government ICT strategies. The goal is to cut costs and promote system
integration, but these goals are seldom fully achieved in practice.
Disappointment with the ability to realize and sustain the promised benefits of
whole-of-government ICT strategies is becoming a common theme.
The cloud will
increasingly empower agencies to access ICT cost savings and ICT-enabled
innovation without the risks and imposts of mandated whole-of-government
procurement and shared services arrangements. Cloud services enable agencies to
make individual choices and still access the economies of scale and innovation
of large mature shared services arrangements,” said Steve Hodgkinson, research
director, Ovum Asia Pacific IT research and
advisory services.
The new
agency-empowering dynamics of cloud computing will have a big impact on the
whole-of-government CIO role. Up until now a government CIO function has been
able to defend its operating budget to the treasurer because it was seen as
essential to the achievement of economies of scale driven cost savings.
If economies of scale
can better be achieved by agencies individually choosing cloud services what
economic value is added by the Office of the CIO? Smart CIOs will accelerate
cloud adoption with visionary leadership and a practical problem-solving
approach to facilitating the procurement and deployment of cloud services by
agencies.
