The benefits of mobile government are tremendous – from being able to better engage with citizens to providing the most cutting-edge devices for enabling government employees to be more productive and effective.
So, will 2013 be the year that a mobile government comes to life?
The answer is ‘definitely maybe’ based on a recent Federal CIO Council study that interviewed 21 agencies on their use (or planned use) for mobility.
The challenges that lay ahead include the costs associated with keeping up with mobile marketplace changes, the right BYOD policies, and of course, the need for the right secure authentication and data encryption solutions.
In terms of key opportunities, and further reinforcing the core benefits at the top of this post, government employees know they will be more productive with the right mobile solutions.
Last year, AOL Government and Market Connections issued a study that showcased how federal managers see a major opportunity for agencies to both improve productivity and save money through the use of mobile solutions.
49 percent of the 300 federal managers who were surveyed said that they could redeploy at least 7 hours per week toward being more productive with the right mobile solutions.
In addition, the study found that manager federal managers believed that more investment is needed to make a mobile government truly come to life. These investments can span everything from infrastructure, staff training and processes for enhancing collaboration and information sharing.
While the challenges are fairly daunting when it comes to mobility, the benefits outweigh any hurdles that lay ahead. As such, we hope that our ‘definitely maybe’ assessment of this effort will move over into the ‘definitely’ category in 2013.