From support to empowerment

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR HUMAN SERVICES IN CLOUD

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With ever-tightening budgets, human services agencies are under increasing pressure to deliver high-quality services for growing populations. Citizens’ expectations are rising as their experience with companies from Amazon to Uber sets a high bar of fundamentally responsive, personalized, intuitive, 24/7 service.

Similarly, human services agencies are expected to deliver long-lasting, life-changing services at an increasingly faster pace, ushering in a new age of citizen empowerment.

Beyond squeezed budgets and heightened consumer expectations, some of the demands bearing down on agencies today include increasing pressure on employment, pensions and various other traditional health and human services. What’s more, public budgets will continue to face increasing challenges as agencies respond to disruptive forces, expected to do more with less. Interventions will be expected to produce longer-lasting outcomes faster and more efficiently.

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Fifty-seven percent of national government agencies lack a ‘bang for buck’ return on their cloud investments.

The majority of these agencies have yet to harness the power of cloud by leveraging proactive IT and LOB leadership to drive cloud policies and strategies for innovation. Source: IDC. CloudView 2018: Hybrid Cloud, a Work in Progress for National Governments, September 2018, Doc # US44220918.

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Automated, virtualized and artificial intelligence service models drive workFace-to-face interaction will continue to be critical in human services—and, in fact, likely to become more focused and valuable. We see proactive, automated, virtualized and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled service models driving the bulk of agencies’ work while the workforce will become more data-driven and provide more specialized, targeted interventions that require empathy, human judgment and technological innovation. To deliver this level of data-driven transformation, human services organizations will start to become digital and agile, leveraging the latest technologies at speed. In addition to AI, other tools such as analytics, blockchain, virtual assistants, omnichannel integration and virtual reality (VR) will play critical roles in how human services are delivered.

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HOW DO HUMAN SERVICES AGENCIES MOVE FROM SUPPORT, THROUGH ENABLEMENT AND ON TO EMPOWERMENT?There are five elements that underpin the journey. Supporting, enabling and ultimately empowering citizens depends on advancing each of these elements; building personalized human services...

Delivered by insight-driven

services

Secured by digital trust

Supported by intelligent

processes

Enabled by digital agility

Orchestrated by human services

as a platform

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Human services as a platformMeanwhile, the platform economy, commissioning models and partnerships continue to evolve quickly, allowing an agency to play the role of service ecosystem orchestrator rather than provider. This environment will necessitate agencies creating and participating in wider, more dynamic markets and networks to provide the right service at the right time.

The cloud business caseMany agencies are beginning to understand that embracing cloud is a key component to accelerating transformation. No longer simply a path to lowering infrastructure costs, today cloud is a catalyst for business and IT innovation—a path to greater citizen empowerment.

Some of the advantages cloud offers:

• Access to a variety of the latest technologies—from machine learning, analytics, AI and VR to geospatial intelligence—that can transform personalization, productivity and process efficiency while improving payment accuracy.

• Unprecedented agility and flexibility to envision, pilot and deliver new services quickly, starting small and scaling fast.

• New strategies to manage system resilience, performance and progressive implementation, ultimately transforming how systems are architected, coded, tested and deployed.

• The highest levels of security and compliance with the most stringent data residency and privacy regulations.

Moreover, cloud enables connectivity among ecosystems—partners, citizens and traditional service providers, plus platform economy players and social networks. Ecosystem business models are at the foundation of disruption, and in fact are difficult to even conceive without cloud. The advantages are clear—organizations can create new value by efficiently connecting citizens with better human services, for example.

Organizations that adopt cloud also embrace a culture of re-use. Rather than building an entire system, cloud enables users to think about what services they can access to build into their own processes. This re-use mentality is particularly relevant for services such as AI where cloud plays an important role, but also extends to other services such as blockchain, geospatial intelligence and intelligent character recognition. As cloud services evolve and mature, the opportunity to create new services within a platform expands and accelerates.

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Beyond costsBeyond the many cost advantages cloud provides, such as reducing tech debt and more ably supporting future capability development, cloud enables agencies to become more innovative, more nimble and deliver outcomes more broadly, with greater efficiency.

CLOUD BUSINESS CASE: STARTING POINTS CAN BE DIFFERENTThere are multiple entry points for cloud migration within human services organizations.

CLOUD

Cost

Mission C

hallenges

Triggers

Business areas

pressure

growth

technology

a

gility

Inflexible

Missio

n

modernization c

halle

nges

App/Infra

Digital

Challenges

Triggers

Business areas

Consolidation Strategy

Organizational agility

Policy agility

Enable and empower stakeholders

Meet citizen expectations

Workforce transformation

Champion and enable service delivery ecosystems

Modernize legacy systems

Whole of government cloud agenda

Budgetary pressures

NEW SERVICE ACCELERATION & DEPLOYMENT

DYNAMIC BUSINESS PRIORITIES

SHIFT CAPEX TO OPEX

WORKFORCE TRANSFORMATION/ MISSION EXPANSION

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There are a number of critical business reasons agencies consider when taking a cloud transformation journey:

• Greater digital transformation with less investment—the agility to adopt leading technologies around big data, user experience, cognition and integration.

• Faster, more efficient development and deployment of new services with continuous improvement.

• Agility to adjust to demand peaks and scale services (natural disaster relief, for example).

• Data sharing with other agencies at scale, helping organizations enable their service delivery partners to better serve citizens.

• Faster implementation of workforce collaboration tools.

• Accelerated speed to value, which helps self-fund innitiatives.

• Levels of service afforded to smaller agencies that previously were only available to larger agencies.

Gone are the days when data residency and security were perceived as unavoidable hurdles to cloud (and, consequently, improved service). Today, across the globe we’re seeing a momentous movement toward cloud offerings specifically geared for government. Some of the world’s largest public cloud providers—“hyperscalers”—offer high-value services exclusively to

1 Offerings vary by geography, trending toward devoted government clouds in major markets (North America, EU, UK, Australia, Japan and Singapore, among others)

the public sector, including devoted government clouds where data residency can be controlled at a national level. Data separation government clouds and public clouds that meet the strictest government regulations are also readily available and becoming more ubiquitous.1

Cloud is ready for human services (and vice versa)

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Cloud providers tailor offerings to meet government’s residence, security and privacy needs

MARKET CONTEXT: GOVERNMENT INDUSTRY/COMMUNITY CLOUD

Dedicated government cloudIndependent data centers with top security and highest privacy devoted to government clients

Suitable for personalized citizen services (e.g. social benefits)

Data separation government cloudLogically separates government data from public cloud, with data residency controlled within country or region

Suitable for managing citizen data, depending on local regulations and client preferences

Public cloud certificationsFulfill stricter controls, certified against specific countries’ privacy and security standards, controlling data residency to specific country/region

Suitable for enterprise and non-authenticated services; may also meet requirements for managing citizen data

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Based on the same state-of-the-art distributed infrastructure technologies and innovative Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings that support the largest commercial organizations in the world, cloud hyperscalers largely forgo private cloud models in favor of public government-only models. Private deployment models focus on infrastructure savings at a relatively low scale (hundreds of physical servers vs. thousands), but they cannot match hyperscalers’ capacity for innovation—financially, technologically or culturally.

Simply put, though private clouds typically offer attractive infrastructure pricing and IT consolidation models, they cannot compete with the pace and scale of innovation among the hyperscalers. With scale that puts them at the leading edge, hyperscalers’ offerings address data privacy and residency with much more robust security than private cloud.

CLOUD HYPER-SCALERS

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Cloud service delivery models for agencies include industry-agnostic infrastructure offerings that meet government security and residency requirements. This is particularly advantageous for organizations that want to refactor their legacy systems as a first step toward transformation. High-value platform offerings like cognitive applications and analytics, user experience, and cross-industry business process management and integration are particularly beneficial for human services agencies.

TAILORED CLOUD SOLUTIONSAdditionally, we’re seeing cloud solutions tailored to human services’ unique needs, particularly around customer relationship management, case management, benefit claims processing, employment markets, and child welfare and child support as well as back office enterprise resource planning (ERP), procurement and talent management.

For human services, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), SaaS and PaaS serve multiple functions beyond hosting and storage (typically an IaaS function):

• PaaS for high-value platforms, such as big data, analytics, AI, blockchain and customer experience

• Complete SaaS offerings for front office, back office, workforce enablement and citizen enablement

CLOUD SERVICE DELIVERY MODEL

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CLOUD DELIVERY MODEL IN HUMAN SERVICES

Application

App architecture

Middleware

Database

Operating system

Servers

Storage

Network

Operating system

Offerings include base software (procurement, ERP, human resources, customer relationship) for industry solutions (user experience, case management) and a few out-of-the-box industry solutions (employment markets), identity management and enterprise software (procurement, ERP, human resources, customer relationship), collaboration solutions, office software.

Industry relevant platforms include cognitive and analytics offerings, user experience and cross-industry enablers for business process management and integration.

Cross-industry offerings include pure migration and refactoring of legacy solutions into cloud architectures. Public and industry clouds are developing government-specific offerings to meet security and data privacy requirements.

SaaS

PaaS

IaaS

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The cloud transformation journey is a progressive transformation that should be aligned with an organization’s overall roadmap to remodel itself. While a few human services organizations are making strategic migrations to cloud, most are in an experimentation phase. However, regardless of where an organization is on the journey—or its incentive to transform at all—we believe it should be aware of the areas where cloud can enable its transformation and take a strategic view to achieve its goals. Agencies can start by developing a strategic roadmap that meets their particular needs and desires, analyzing:

• The overall business case (innovation and cost) and how it can address organizational and stakeholder needs.

• Which services are available and what considerations need to be made when leveraging them.

For example, the decisions behind moving citizens’ private data to cloud vary by region and are not simply a matter of physical residence. The determination could involve technological or legislative concerns—or perhaps even be a matter of national security. This, however, would not necessarily preclude an organization from leveraging cloud to facilitate transformation of its customer experience (natural language processing or VR for field case worker training, for example). Nor should these constraints prevent organizations from transforming its back-office ERP or procurement processes via cloud-based solutions.

THE ROADMAP: A STRATEGIC VIEW

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For human services agencies making the journey to cloud the goal is to produce greater outcomes at scale, moving beyond their traditional role of provider to the role of ecosystems orchestrator.

Agencies have the potential to step into a new age, one in which service recipients are more self-sufficient and better equipped for independence. But the human services sector faces a number of challenges as public budgets continue to plummet and agencies must adapt to change and disruptive forces.

Citizens should expect defined, continuous, personalized, adaptive and intelligent interactions through every key moment of need, allowing them to be involved in critical decisions. At the same time, they should expect their privacy to be respected and kept intact. Cloud can help make these expectations achievable and affordable.

To meet citizen needs, we believe human services agencies should consider government-oriented cloud offerings as they continue to mature. These offerings are especially well-suited to agencies seeking paths to meet regulatory, residency and security challenges. Today, innovations in cloud can have a highly positive impact on an agency’s outcomes, particularly through its service procurement and operating models.

Looking forward, agencies should leverage the current momentum and strategically define their cloud journey to access the latest technology and architectures, which can dramatically accelerate their transformation into agile digital organizations and ultimately enable the shift into ecosystem-based service delivery. Be it cloud strategy, migration or management, Accenture has the right combination of human services and cloud experience and capabilities, and is developing cloud operating models, solutions and services to guide human services organizations at the pace of innovation on their journey to cloud.

THE CLOUD OPPORTUNITY

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Author

Ricardo EscobarGlobal Social Services Technology Consulting Lead ricardo.escobar@accenture.com

Rainer BinderGlobal Social Services Leadrainer.binder@accenture.com