The current White House Executive Order on transforming federal customer experience and service delivery set a new standard for government modernization, bringing with it an array of opportunities to streamline operations. Robotic process automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been identified as tools that can assist in the transition. Research indicates these tools can improve employee productivity, reduce administrative burdens, and increase citizen satisfaction by delivering more accurate and timely services.

Federal agencies are already beginning to experiment with robotic process automation tools, such as UiPath, to automate operations, including data entry, content management, and contact center workflows, providing faster access to data while reducing duplication of effort. By using automation technology like RPA and AI, these types of resolutions can bring many benefits. These include increased transparency and better insights into how citizens interact with governments digitally.  This leads to improved trust between citizens and their government organizations.

Understanding Robotic Process Automation for Government Agencies

RPA technology is a major efficiency driver for government agencies as it expedites data processing, manipulation, and communication activities. Software robots form an integral part of RPA technology. These are virtual agents (AI-based software programs) that users can configure to learn and interpret existing computer-aided applications, allowing them to achieve these tasks with minimal need for direct human supervision.

With RPA, government agencies can automate many processes. Processes containing structured data and those with repeatable tasks and relatively consistent outcomes are particularly well-suited for automation through RPA. This means that organizations can significantly reduce the time and costs allocated for tedious manual labor like paperwork or data entry.

Over the next decade, we can expect to see a transformation of public sectors due to the increasing RPA adoption . According to McKinsey and Company estimates, by 2025, RPA could have a global economic impact as high as $6.7 trillion based on its ability to match full-time equivalent (FTE) employee output. Furthermore, it has been noted that 30% of employee working hours globally could be automated by 2030 – an indication that RPA leads to increased efficiency and cost savings in organizations. RPA is greatly beneficial, from increasing productivity and job satisfaction in employees to improving service delivery to citizens. 

The Benefits of Robotic Process Automation for Federal Government Agencies

Robotic process automation helps government agencies to meet the demands of the twenty-first century by reimagining how they accomplish mission-critical tasks, in addition to providing enhanced services to citizens. RPA can bring about numerous advancements, such as:

• higher capacity for work,
• lower operational costs,
• reduction or elimination of backlogs,
• lower errorful outcomes,
• improved compliance and auditing standards,
• freeing up staff to execute more rewarding tasks.

Deloitte states that further improvements can be made by incorporating cognitive technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and speech recognition into RPA systems. These technologies allow for automated processes that otherwise would have required the perceptual and judgment capabilities of human beings.

Federal government agencies are increasingly realizing the value of investing in RPA technology. Here is how automation proposes leading benefits for them.

1. Improved Response Time

Robotic process automation is proving to be a valuable tool in meeting the expectations of U.S. citizens for on-demand, digital, and quick access to public services. Automation improves the customer experience by freeing government employees from mundane, repetitive tasks. This also allows them to perform higher-value work, such as directly addressing citizen needs. It is an effective method for agencies to reduce call hold times and abandonment rates in their contact centers. This further increases agents’ time for problem-solving and providing quality service. Ultimately, this helps federal government agencies ensure citizens receive more personalized attention when they need it most.

2. Workflow Automation Increasing Task Achievability

Secure RPA offers an improved alternative to difficult and costly digital modernization efforts. It effectively connects disparate systems within the existing government infrastructure. RPA operates at the user level and can easily automate workflows between legacy and modern systems. This enables providing a low-cost solution that often increases the value of legacy systems. Furthermore, RPA technology allows agencies to securely move data from a legacy system into the cloud. Thus, this ensures consistent and secure data access without compromising agency compliance or security requirements. RPA serves as an effective tool to facilitate digital modernization and optimize existing systems within federal government functions.

3. Boosted Employee Experience

Automation technologies provide a way for employees to optimize and streamline everyday operation activities, providing greater agility and efficiency. RPA can identify redundancies in processes, freeing up time to create space for more meaningful tasks that add real value. As such, employees are able to spend more time focusing on projects that have direct impacts on those they serve. This shift in focus enables them to apply their skills, experience, and expertise in ways that make the greatest contribution to their organizations.

4. Better Compliance

RPA is capable of relieving pressure on existing resources that are being tasked with meeting compliance mandates. It allows agencies to efficiently and accurately review, process, and fulfill requirements by streamlining formerly manual processes. The resulting freedom from tedious manual labor results in stronger regulatory reach. Additionally, automation can dramatically reduce the time it takes to complete compliance-related paperwork. This will lead to faster resolution times for any potential conflicts arising.

Robotic Process Automation: The Transformation of U.S Government Agencies

Deloitte recently published a report showing the potential effects of utilizing robotic process automation (RPA) tools on medium-sized organizations, pointing to a $30 million savings in bottom-line impact for those organizations with $20 billion in revenue and 50,000 employees. These figures offer only a glimpse of the drastic potential this technology has to offer at an even larger scale – a government level. The U.S Federal Government boasts 2.1 million employees, many of whom are engaged in repetitive tasks that could potentially be automated to save time and money – not to mention the size of the annual budget is over $6.2 trillion. As this technology continues to improve, the fiscal implications for US government agencies could be staggering.

The future of public services has arrived. By using automation, federal agencies are meeting the demands of an ever-evolving society and creating a streamlined way for citizens to access services. By understanding the need for speed and efficiency, agencies can utilize automated systems which reduce the amount of manual labor often associated with traditional government operations. Moving forward, the adoption of automation will become increasingly essential for governments around the world looking to maintain their current services or expand into areas that weren’t possible with manual processes.

TechSur Solutions uses RPA technology to automate repetitive operations in order to solve your challenges, allowing you to be an agency hero. Find out more about the enterprise RPA solutions we offer and our commitment to enhancing governmental operations.

For many organizations across government sectors, digitization has turned into a “must-have.” In the newly released Automation Now & Next report, based on a survey of 1,000 leading organizations, nearly all participants (95%) now view automation as a critical part of their strategic initiatives. Through robotic process automation, organizational policies are sped up and streamlined to allow staff to concentrate on assignments of maximum priority. 

Even though RPA has become more popular among organizations in recent years, some skeptics still have incorrect ideas about what it is and what it can accomplish. This article will address the most common myths, along with each one’s present state of reality.

Misconception #1: RPA Is Only Applicable to Document-Heavy Processes

When speaking with CIOs, we frequently encounter this misconception. And it all began based on what, back then—15 years or more ago—existing systems could or could not accomplish. The major problem was that spreadsheets, PDFs, and other varieties of documents could not be analyzed by the solutions available at the time.

Then Robotic Process Automation (RPA) entered the picture, and without realizing its true potential, many believed this was expressly created for document-heavy processing. Due to such misconceptions, robotic process automation tools may have fallen victim to stereotyping.

Early automation of rule-based procedures, such as data extraction from workbooks, had limited application early on.  Today, current RPA technologies have radically changed the way organizations operate. Because the transformation is simpler now, a non-technical individual can automate processes without the aid of specialists.

In recent years, RPA is becoming more intelligent. Intelligent automation, or intelligent RPA, is when the capabilities of computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) combine with RPA to automate a wide range of processes, both basic and complicated. It raises the bar for automation. With intelligent RPA, organizations can automate almost any front- or back-office function.

Misconception #2: RPA Promotes Bad Processes by Automating Them

Consider a finance department that is awaiting a significant ERP rollout. They currently have several gaps, and they are filling those discrepancies using Excel alternatives. The finance team is informed by the IT division that, once the ERP program is implemented, all templates will be eliminated. When? Two years hence. So what occurs in the interim? The finance department is drowning in bad spreadsheet procedures. With these two factors added, meeting expectations becomes difficult. 

Until ERP digitization is implemented, robotic process automation tools can assist organizations in its place, giving them some breathing room. It has the ability to automate procedures based on the given documents, including worksheets.  And the implementation period can be much shorter—usually just a few weeks. In this instance, one is not using a harmful procedure but rather providing a stopgap measure until the long-term fix is ready. 

Even during ERP implementations, RPA has shown to be a tremendous help because it makes automating ERP workflows much simpler than using the workflow options provided by the ERP. Moreover, modern RPA platforms often feature an agile development tool to help identify the finest, most eligible procedures to automate.

Misconception #3: The Citizen Development Model Is Against IT Best Practices

The popularity of citizen development is rising quickly. Many embrace the idea of citizen developers; and agree that educating citizen designers is the biggest priority to forge ahead on expanding automation throughout the organization. 

Citizen development is a concept that is occurring as a result of factors such as:

• The utilization of RPA technology is becoming simpler.
• The average user is growing more technological.
• IT departments are overburdened by a lack of qualified personnel and an excessive number of initiatives.

The concept of citizen development is enduring. It can also function without jeopardizing IT best practices. The key? You must have administration, disclosure, management, a division of responsibilities, and accountability in place in order to employ the appropriate technology in the right way. Let democratization begin after that. 

Misconception #4: Robotic Process Automation Will Take Away Jobs

Rather than replacing workers, RPA more effectively frees people from tedious, repetitive activities. Employees can concentrate on innovative and strategic tasks that call for human intelligence by using Digital Co-Workers. Employees may become more content with their jobs as a result, increasing productivity. RPA has also given rise to fresh opportunities. Organizations and agencies are looking for RPA developers, analysts, architects, engineers, and other professionals who can assist them in implementing and managing automation. 

Robotic Process Automation For Government Agencies

RPA technology has a lot to contribute to a range of government agencies, and we hope this piece has inspired you to take advantage of everything it has to contribute. For agency executives who are looking to consolidate their operations for increased agility and responsiveness, these misconceptions about RPA can create a lot of needless hassles. Robotic Process Automation is unquestionably a realistic alternative as you start looking for that “next edge” to stay current and effective in your field.

RPA adoption makes the most mundane and tedious tasks easier to accomplish while also strengthening IT infrastructures across different sectors of government. TechSur Solutions solves your problems with RPA technology to automate many repetitive tasks. Learn more about our enterprise RPA solutions and how dedicated we are to improving government operations.

The United States government’s executive branch continues to advocate and set the stage for robotic process automation (RPA) deployment. The government’s prompt acceptance of RPA automation programs indicates its capability. Presently, over 30 government entities are using UiPath to alleviate bottlenecks, resolve compliance concerns, streamline operations, and conserve valuable funds paid by taxpayers. 

UIPath RPA enables federal employees to serve individuals best while relieving them of tedious but vital tasks. It also offers opportunities for persistent learners to excel in administrative offices. Especially at a time when the governmental sector is anticipated to be most affected by the “silver tsunami,”  a.k.a the rapidly aging population.

Government Agencies are Adopting RPA at a Rapid Pace

RPA is transforming how the government operates. Any impartial evaluation will show that governments are utilizing RPA more expeditiously than any other innovation.

The United States budget for the fiscal year 2020 included RPA. A dialogue box highlighted RPA automation to draw attention to its significance. This addition to the expenditure complied with the President’s 2018 Management Agenda’s recommendation. The recommendation mentioned transferring individuals from low-value to more lucrative jobs.

The RPA Community of Practice was created at the GSA in the middle of 2019 and wasn’t designed to assess UIpath RPA. The RPA accomplishments are what motivated the RPA Community to step up and assist U.S. government organizations not presently employing RPA. The following are a few of the 70 UiPath RPA deployments

• the GSA
• NASA Shared Services Center
• Air Force Personnel Command
• Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Government RPA experts from various defense and non-defense agencies gathered to catalog automation best practices. Government organizations just starting to employ RPA automation can use these tips to speed up adoption.

RPA Automation Milestones 

According to Gartner, by 2024, 75% of governments are anticipated to have at least three hyper-automation programs established or in progress. 19% of federal participants are already using RPA according to the 2021 Gartner Digital Transformation Divergence Across Government Sectors Survey. And 33% plan to implement it within the next two years. The following are the main reasons why RPA is so prominent.

• The process improvements it yields.
• How rapidly it can pay off.
• How organization can use it to automate legacy system activities. 

The federal reskilling initiative is demonstrating that when the employees are adequately retrained, RPA can be applied faster and further across government entities. This is more applicable when federal agencies reconfigure, restructure, and accommodate retirement plans.

UIPath RPA Automation Resolutions

Because of the emphasis on RPA by the government, UIPath extended the duration of their Academy Live hands-on workshop by two-thirds to 8 hours. As RPA begins to expand even further,  the workshop will assist non-technical staff members in comprehending how RPA integrates technology infrastructure. And how it instigates modern digital tools like artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and virtual agents.

Seventy federal deployments of UiPath, all of which have been functional and are increasing, indicating that RPA is making headway in the effort to improve government.

In Conclusion

RPA is gradually revolutionizing governmental processes and will continue to do so in the near future. Virtual assistants are taking care of the essential but time-consuming job on employee systems. This means federal employees can quit functioning like machines for their computer systems and start assisting the general public in other productive ways. 

UIPath RPA automation adoption makes the most mundane and tedious tasks easier to accomplish while also strengthening IT infrastructures across different sectors of government. TechSur Solutions solves your problems with RPA technology to automate many repetitive tasks. Learn more about our enterprise RPA solutions and how dedicated we are to improving government operations. 

Citizens seek fast, straightforward interactions with their government agencies. Governments may contact constituents, attend to their demands for knowledge, services, and transactions, and then answer those needs with the aid of a citizen engagement system. It is essential for organizations to integrate an efficient strategy that pays close attention to relevant parties within the administration. Especially in order to foresee demands and invent alternatives before dilemmas arise. This allows the government to deliver timely solutions to citizens to address their current needs. The integration of Amazon cloud helps achieve just that.

To enhance citizen engagement systems and the process of interaction with the administration, government agencies across the United States are utilizing the Amazon cloud and strengthening it with AI. Due to the cloud, governments are investing in the forthcoming wave of multichannel services. These omnichannel technologies and AI enhancements minimize direct interaction constraints on personnel. They can consolidate input locations to free resources for more essential operations. Further, AI enhancements decrease and eliminate latency for company personnel and their consumers and enhance the constituent communication process. 

Benefits of AWS Platforms and Services 

With more than 7,500 federal organizations utilizing AWS, the need for U.S. government organizations to strike an equilibrium between affordability/flexibility and cybersecurity, accountability, and dependability has increased significantly. AWS has regularly assisted in navigation related to regulatory concerns linked to cloud services. It has further helped in overcoming government conformity difficulties posed by cloud computing. It is feasible to accomplish operations with a consistent set of tools, a continuous supply of new features, and the versatility to grow quickly with the objective. This is mainly due to AWS’s cloud hosting competency throughout all classification levels.

Amazon Connect-Enabled Constituent Services

Amazon Connect is an omnichannel, virtualized client service platform that enables organizations to deliver strong, less expensive customer care. 

Regions of the US, such as King County, and Washington, utilize the Amazon cloud to guarantee that citizens have easy, fair access to the amenities they seek. They go further than the call center services, adopting a proactive and sympathetic stance. The Amazon Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is now integrated with digital assistants (Amazon AI bots) across multiple channels. This includes voice, web, text, and social media, giving everyone accessibility anytime, anywhere, on any system. Instances involve generating information that is uniform across all mediums and improving accessibility for individuals who understand a different language or have hearing and vision issues.

Washington, DC, provided contact center employees with Amazon Connect so they could provide smoother and more affordable services to customers. The self-service program for DC’s Child Support Services Division, inaugurated in 2010 on a single network, cost more than $1 million to deploy over ten months. Repairs and maintenance cost far more than $75,000 each year. It took about six months and no extra expenditure to implement the same functionality utilizing Amazon Connect. Using Amazon Connect, contact centers can gather information from many sources, such as agent broadcasts and contact trace data, and store it in a centralized data lake where authorized users can view the client information.

Benefits of Amazon Cloud AI Enhancements

To enhance constituent engagement operations outside of office hours, governments are quickly implementing AI-enabled technological devices. These include chatbots and digital voice assistants that are accessible around the clock. These modulation schemes can also deliver data and services via gadgets and software that users are already accustomed to and at ease using. Individuals can use speech, text, and the telephone to access a centralized data and service request center. 80% of the incoming flow in governmental contact centers is for data requests that require the same response for one inquiry as it is for 1,000. Amazon AI can liberate resources from mechanical, repetitive work so administrators can concentrate on higher-order activities. 

For various governments around the US, Citibot, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner, creates AI-powered chatbots. Amazon Lex is a service used by Citibot to create intelligent interface designs for both text and voice programs. Citibot sought to add a generic search feature to more efficiently utilize selected FAQ information and recent statistical sources from numerous targeted websites. Ultimately, this increases the versatility of their chatbot for powerful new inquiry kinds. Citibot used the Web Connector Tool from TensorIoT, an AWS Partner, and Amazon Kendra, an enterprise web service, to create an all-purpose search system. 

Pre-trained AI technologies from AWS offer pre-made expertise for workflows and services.  AI services are simple to incorporate with platforms for solving typical use cases. These include tailored suggestions, upgrading contact centers, boosting protection and reliability, and raising consumer engagement. Government organizations can benefit from reliability and precision from continuously-learning APIs. This is because these APIs leverage the same deep learning technique that underpins Amazon.com and ML Services. The AWS is sufficiently developed using computer vision to classify resources, spot anomalies, and boost processes with autonomous supervision.

Amazon cloud adoption makes communication, establishment, and transfer of data easier while also strengthening IT infrastructures across different government sectors. TechSur Solutions solves your problems with Amazon cloud technology to enhance various communication tasks. Learn more about our enterprise cloud solutions and how dedicated we are to increase flexibility for government operations. 

Each year, Washington Technology ranks small businesses who serve government customers, according to their compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the last five years. TechSur Solutions is delighted to be named as the 7th fastest-growing small business serving government customers in 2022! Thank you to Washington Technology and GovExec for this honor.

https://washingtontechnology.com/rankings/fast-50/2022/

We look forward to climbing this list each year as we deliver emerging technologies to Federal agencies!

The data-driven nature of the world has been aided largely by the rapid advancement of technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data analytics. Increasingly more areas are realizing the usefulness of data and how tapping into it can open a world of growth and development.

Big data analytics is a fast-growing field that has transformed government operations. The sheer volume of data is astounding; for governments, most, if not all of this data is useful. Big data analytics tools help uncover insights and extract meaning from all of this data. The volume of data will continue to increase considerably for federal government organizations and agencies. The question becomes how organizations can make use of this massive amount of data to facilitate development.

The Importance of Big Data Analytics

Understanding and manipulating data has not only helped make numerous processes more efficient, but it has also opened up the possibility of extracting insights that were not possible before. For governments, this means a better allocation of resources and a greater understanding of peoples’ needs as they change. Some examples of ways big data analytics can be of use are:

• Predicting the spread of disease and taking precautionary measures to prevent it.
• Developing a public transport system and increasing convenience and efficiency for its users by understanding travel patterns and needs.
• Fraud reduction.
• Understanding educational needs and responding with better thought-out study programs.

Data analytics has allowed companies to gain a competitive edge for the private sector by understanding their customers’ needs. For federal government organizations and agencies, the motivating factor is not to outperform their competitors but to provide better services for citizens and make more efficient use of resources. Evidence-based policymaking can be achieved, the outcomes of which can be analyzed and monitored to refine the policies better, accelerating development for the country at large.

Taking Advantage of the Data-Driven World

Once you realize the importance and potential that lies in data, the next step is exploring how organizations can analyze big data in an optimized way.

1. Utilizing Big Data Analytics Tools

Newer, more advanced big data analytics tools have allowed for more efficient means of data collection. Traditional data collection methods, such as household consumption surveys, left room for discrepancies and misinterpretations. These methods were also time and cost-consuming and prone to error. These weaknesses are the same for most of the areas that make use of traditional tools and methods. 

Big data analytics is time efficient because it’s faster and more accurate than traditional methods. As big data analytics tools include bigger and better technologies, the accuracy of data models will only increase. This creates new avenues for data collection that will lead the way for more appropriate policies to be devised.

2. Implementing Machine Learning

Machine learning has been revolutionary in allowing data to be analyzed and used in new ways. Organizations can manipulate complex data and bring out useful intricate patterns from it. Here, the question of data quality comes into play. Ensuring data quality before relying on big data analytics tools is essential for any data model to work to a reassuring degree of accuracy. Several factors can help improve data quality.

With the volume of data increasing exponentially, there’s bound to be ‘bad data’ – inaccurate, outdated, or incomplete data. Such data compromises the entire dataset’s quality, leading to a less efficient model. Cleaning data is integral to creating efficient models based on big data analytics. The greater the quality of data, the more useful it is.

Conclusion

As technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence advance, addressing weaknesses in current systems will gradually become easier, allowing producing stronger data models based on big data analytics. Presently, the importance of big data analytics is undeniable. As we progress, this importance will only become irreplaceable.

To learn more about the various aspects of data and the different ways in which organizations can use it, visit TechSur Solutions. 

Cloud computing has gained considerable traction over the years, along with technologies like machine learning. With increasing development in the field, it has shown the potential to revolutionize numerous sectors. With federal government agencies pursuing big data analytics, a medium for storing massive amounts of data is necessary, along with a capable conduit for the processes involving big data analytics. This is where cloud-based big data analytics comes into play.

What is Cloud Big Data Analytics?

Cloud big data analytics provides organizations with a platform on which they can carry out all data analytics processes. Instead of burdening its in-house servers, an organization or agency uses a third party’s infrastructure is. Because the infrastructure belongs to another, its maintenance is also handled by a third party. This simplifies the organization’s process and reduces their responsibilities, allowing them to focus solely on performance.

The involved third-party vendor essentially provides the entire infrastructure to the organization, the setup for which they are responsible. This ends up saving time and money in setting up the infrastructure and maintaining it. When another party handles this task, agency employees can better focus on scaling productions and redlining their processes to gather deeper insights.

With the improvement in data analytics tools through the implementation of advanced technologies such as machine learning, there’s an opportunity for organizations to hone their operations and scale them by making use of the best infrastructure possible.

Benefits of Cloud Big Data Analytics

As the scale of operations becomes progressively bigger, organizations are looking for ways to agilely use big data without compromising the quality or scale of their operations. Opting for on-premise solutions forces them to make just that compromise. Cloud analytics offers numerous benefits to organizations and agencies.

1. Improved Work Flexibility 

With remotely located servers or infrastructure, organizations can effectively distribute work. When the entire infrastructure is on an organization’s premise, there’s less flexibility in working dynamics. More often than not, employees are required to carry out all operations in person on the organization’s system. 

Cloud big data analytics offers the flexibility of hybrid or entirely remote work. Since the pandemic, the workplace has changed drastically. Instantaneous access from anywhere has become less about convenience and more of a need. A more distributed work model also facilitates scaling, as employees from across borders with different skill sets can offer unique perspectives to the organization’s growth.

2. Collaboration Between Teams

Cloud-based data analytics can be highly collaborative. It includes features such as snapshots of processes, adding commentary to provide context behind a process, or having discussions with team members. This kind of work allows for improvements in collective decision-making as a whole.

3. Centralized Data Storage

Additionally, one of the features of cloud-based data analytics is its ability to centralize data. Usually, in traditional methods of storing data in on-premise systems, data can be scattered across the various systems set up for different purposes. Therefore, getting an overall, cohesive view and understanding of an organization is tough. By centralizing data, cloud big data analytics helps build an integrated, complete view of the organization’s processes, which helps maximize insights.

4. Enhanced Data Security

For many organizations, data privacy and security are major concerns when third-party vendors store their data. For this reason, many organizations, especially federal government agencies, hesitate to go for cloud data analytics.

Data security is not guaranteed even if an organization stores its data on-premises. The reinforcement of Software as a Service (SaaS) environments is especially to protect against data leaks and hacks. The risk is far lower as on-premise servers need to be manually configured, leaving more room for errors and loopholes that lead to security risks. Additionally, SaaS operations are subject to strict standards to meet security needs.

Conclusion

Cloud computing has allowed organizations to explore a new world of operations – operations that can happen at a much larger scale than was practically impossible before. As the world grapples with huge amounts of data and making use of it, conducting operations on a massive scale to produce greater insights data available can be made possible by availing of cloud-based data analytics. 

TechSur Solutions can assist you in developing a data analytics platform that can enhance decision-making within your organization. Learn more about data analytics and how it can help improve your agency’s operations. 

Government agencies seeking to modernize operations while improving their efficiency and accuracy need technological advancements like machine learning (ML) to establish themselves with the wider public. With its powerful data processing capabilities, image classification, and detection capabilities, machine learning provides captivating opportunities for governments at all levels looking to automate repetitive and intensive processes. 

With artificial intelligence solutions in government expected to rise as much as 33% by 2024, the exciting prospect of machine learning in government operations should see an increase in digital transformation at local, state, and federal levels. Here are four prominent machine learning use cases for government operations and the benefits these use cases can generate. 

Fraud Detection 

Machine learning for government fraud is an increasingly reliable use case to detect any financial improprieties or budgeting oversights. 

Increasingly, machine learning has been used to optimize financial management and eradicate any outliers and abnormalities that can be used to improve the precision of budget audits and organizational activities. With machine learning tools, government agencies can cut unnecessary spending and speed up contracting processes to keep track of where money is going or coming from.

With machine learning at the core of operations, ML tools pinpoint any deviations from regular activity, collecting data from various sources and processes in live time to establish normal patterns while alerting administrators of any unusual happenings. Considering how costly and prevalent government fraud is, having machine learning to keep things in check provides unprecedented control for agencies and departments. 

Image Detection and Classification 

Machine learning tools are also known for their image identification and classification capabilities, helping government entities to identify criminals and criminal activity. As recognition software continues to evolve, including the refinement of facial recognition software, governments can use machine learning to spot wanted criminals in public. 

The Census Bureau’s analysts and researchers use large amounts of data to predict survey response levels and estimate populations by using satellite imagery. In the future, governments can use machine learning tools to recognize and report suspicious objects in videos or photos. 

Data Management 

Machine learning algorithms learn from data and concentrate rules from it, subsequently applying learned insight to assess new data and use their insights to solve several distinct problems like classification or clustering. 

Government builds more seamless and engaging data processing models using machine learning tools, consistently extracting information from highly dimensional and unstructured data to unlock the true value of data. By doing so, machine learning frees up high-value work while eradicating the monotony of repetitive processes, much of which includes data entry or documentation. Business productivity improves by 54% when using machine learning to automate tasks and improve data flow, allowing governments to spend more time on labor-intensive tasks. 

Making Policies Based on Machine Learning Use Cases

Thanks to the improvement of data flows and processes with machine learning tools, government entities can optimize their policy-making capabilities. Machine learning enhances decision-making processes while generating information from the public, including analyzing social trends to influence and inform public policies. 

Machine learning also supports city planning at the local level by analyzing traffic flows and road conditions. With machine learning, government entities can enact laws that people can relate to and get benefits from while gaining newfound control over lawmaking and establishing greater public trust. 

TechSur Solutions solves your problems with technology to automate your simplest and most technical tasks through machine learning tools. Learn more about our AI solutions and how we take adaptive machine learning a step further to help governments generate enticing opportunities while capitalizing on the benefits of digital transformation.

With today’s technological demands, government IT should foster cultural and engineering changes that break down barriers and implement revolutionary systems to stay agile. To achieve increased robustness, government IT requires a DevSecOps approach, encouraging open collaboration between developers and security and operations elements that focus on automation to ensure the quick and consistent delivery of a secure infrastructure. 

A DevSecOps approach facilitates increased collaboration while improving government innovation and security. Governments can collaborate with innovative partners who build and implement comprehensive solutions. This approach to software development delivers more secure and efficient services for government agencies. However, statistics show how rarely DevSecOps approaches have been adopted in government and how unfamiliar they are with these approaches. 

So, why should governments care about DevSecOps and start revolutionizing their IT frameworks?

Top Reasons for Consideration 

DevSecOps benefits for governments include the speeding up of workflows and the increase of transparency while ensuring management with minimal effort. The most successful DevSecOps teams have characterized processes by various elements, including: 

• Low redundancy
• High collaboration 
• Repeatability 

Automation and auditability are prioritized, usurping subjective decision-making to create adaptive technological solutions. Furthermore, a DevSecOps approach in government would actuate various high-value metrics to judge the efficiency of software. Deployment frequency and change failure rate are key facets that make a DevSecOps approach viable. Meanwhile, time-to-value, the time between a featured request and the realized business value from the request, is another good judge of progress for government entities using this approach. 

A DevSecOps approach around security helps governments to reduce expenses and encourage more transparency during IT development. Additionally, this kind of approach shortens development cycles and keeps pace with innovation as government functions capitalize on cloud-native technologies.

The Importance of DevSecOps Benefits In Government

Rather than mirroring software development and focusing excessively on the production phase of development, DevSecOps approaches allow for government entities to shift security left. As a result, security is prioritized early in the planning stage. DevSecOps advocates for security at the beginning of the planning stage to catch any security flaws or issues quickly. By embedding controls and increasing visibility, the software development cycle speeds up while allowing the team to reduce vulnerabilities and malicious code as well as mitigate the potential of vulnerabilities being exposed. With security at the fore, development is streamlined, and government operations are more flexible. 

Additionally, a Dev SecOps approach for government IT eliminates friction between the development, security, and operations teams while leveraging modern technologies. And, DevSecOps addresses the main causes of vulnerabilities to prevent continuous security issues, including the strengthening of test tools and improving coding strategies. 

Eradicating Misconceptions of DevSecOps Adoption in Government 

While the implementation of a DevSecOps approach in government is exciting and prepares government IT for refreshed perspectives and unique opportunities, there are some typical misconceptions associated with its adoption that the leaders of government entities should look out for. 

There’s a purveying thought that adopting DevSecOps is a signal that government IT is giving up control, especially when partnered with an innovative partner that regulates technological requirements and permissions. However, DevSecOps brings automation that allows IT to best achieve consistency with compliance requirements, enforcing the necessary access controls more effectively than traditional, manual processes.

Another misconception is that DevSecOps strictly focuses on speed, with faster deployment at any time. While speed is one of the benefits of DevSecOps that government IT can enjoy, speed is a byproduct rather than the central aspect. Compliance, stability, and quality are the core functions of DevSecOps, generating improved business speed by automating key IT processes. 

DevSecOps makes everything look simpler while strengthening IT infrastructures across various levels of government. TechSur Solutions solves your problems with technology to automate your simplest and most technical tasks. Learn more about our enterprise DevSecOps solutions and how they improve government operations. 

Being cloud-ready in today’s landscape is a necessity for governments to keep up with the consistently changing demands of the public sector as well as modernize infrastructures and preserve important information. Cloud readiness depends on the availability of resources that a government has, any specific government requirements, and the ability to scale business operations. 

It’s also a smart strategic move considering how much financial investment cloud migration costs, going up to five figures in the most complex cases. To avoid costly ramifications and ensure your move to the cloud is fluid, here are some refreshers on how to do a top-notch cloud assessment and make your migration worthwhile. 

Identifying the Right Scope, Business Cases 

Before going full speed ahead with migration, governments need to truly understand the purpose behind the migration and the degree of migration that’s necessary. As exciting as cloud migration is, going into it blindly without knowing the true scope and business cases defeats the purpose entirely, costing governments precious time and money. 

Successful cloud migration is meant to actuate several business cases. These cases include: 

• Scaling different government resources to make them faster and easier to use
• Boosting data resiliency thanks to backup services and disaster recovery software
• Reducing costs caused by maintaining data centers and hardware replacements

When local, state, and federal governments conduct a cloud readiness assessment, there should be a clear idea of what to transfer to the cloud knowing which applications and data need to be moved. Not all data or apps need to be migrated, especially if, for instance, privacy and security regulations demand that governments know where data is being stored, maintained, and accessed. 

Assessing Infrastructure Demands

Doing internal research into the IT infrastructure and environment is necessary to determine the applications, data, and workloads that make the most sense to transfer to the cloud or can be removed outright. With this knowledge, governments know the requirements for the future cloud environment and conduct a thorough cloud assessment. 

Applications typically change to adapt to the modernized infrastructure, with the changes either involving a few changes to the application’s core or a complete rebuild. In other cases, the government can opt to leverage a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application for improved adaptability. 

Security Requirements 

Government regulations typically influence the security posture of organizations within the cloud and affect what’s included in cloud migration. When governments engage in cloud migration, the same thought process should apply, with a regular inventory of data taken to have a full view of what’s available. Knowing the degree of security that’s necessary puts governments in full control when conducting a cloud readiness assessment, using various measures such as

• Encryption 
• Access Management
• Web App Firewalls 
• Identity Management

Data leakage/loss and confidentiality have long been concerns regarding cloud security. Cloud assessment best practices help governments at every level examine every scope regarding security so that all sensitive data is fully protected and preserved. 

Timeline and Budget 

A migration timeline and budget to facilitate it are two vital elements when creating the optimal cloud strategy. 

The timeline is key so governments can track and hit certain milestones set for the cloud migration process. During a cloud readiness assessment, timelines also allow governments to identify setbacks and their reasons. 

A cloud assessment should also include a close tracking of the migration budget, with the budget consistently aligned with the aforementioned business use cases. The budget should include the total cost of ownership, labor costs, migration training, and licensing costs. It may take less time to put apps in the cloud with minimal periphery changes. However, such a minimalistic approach may dampen the benefits of cloud migration. Governments that are rebuilding applications may spend more time but can achieve greater cloud functionality and flexibility.

TechSur Solutions solves your problems with technology to automate your simplest and most technical tasks. Learn more about our cloud-native application solutions and how these solutions generate enticing opportunities as you migrate to the cloud.