SOCITM (Society of Information Technology Management)
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IT Trends 2013-2014
ICT managers must reconfigure their offer to deliver citizen-friendly digital and mobile services with much lower budgets says IT Trends 2013/14
Economic pressures, societal changes and technological advances are combining to put huge pressure on local public service ICT managers to reconfigure what they offer to their organisations and to do so at lower cost.
The changes now in train, covered in IT Trends 2013/14 published by Socitm, the professional association for IT leaders in local public services, will cause even greater disruption than the transition from mainframe to PC, says the report.
Purchase the IT Trends 2013-2014 report
Subtitled Delivering against the technology expectation the report says that the main driver for change is the consumerisation of ICT, with widespread take-up of smartphones and tablets increasing users’ familiarity with, and comfort in, using powerful technology.
Against this background, service managers need modernised services that will run at much lower cost. The ICT function will have a smaller estate to run, but one that calls on cloud services to meet cyclical peaks and troughs of demand. To do this effectively, ICT managers and their services will need to call on a broader range of skills than in the past.
As in previous years, Socitm’s IT Trends 2013/14 is compiled from a number of information sources, but principally a detailed questionnaire sent to heads of IT in local authorities and other local public services during 2013. The survey report is produced to help these organisations plan and manage their ICT services by sharing the information gathered across the sector.
The survey findings indicate that cost reduction and technology refresh are seen by ICT managers as the most pressing issues they face, with the wider modernisation agenda, and topics where ICT might play an enabling or supportive role, featuring much lower down the scale.
The report also looks at IT trends in local public services from a supplier perspective. Socitm Premium Partners were provided with the preliminary results from the survey, and the report features commentary from three of them, ATOS, BT and CSC.
The report concludes with actions required to prepare the ICT function, its senior managers and teams for the challenges posed by the trends it reveals.
