Gartner’s top 10 govt tech trends for 2021

Gartner has outlined a list of 10 government technology trends to meet the challenges that arose as a result of the 2020 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred the acceleration of digital innovation across the government sector around the world, presenting government leaders with new opportunities to use data and technologies to build trust, agility and resilience in public institutions,” Gartner research vice president Rick Howard said.

“While pandemic-related challenges will continue for some time, technology trends have emerged that address critical challenges in areas such as security, cost containment and citizen experience.”

1. Accelerated legacy modernisation

Government CIOs are accelerating the move to modern, modular architectures. 

The pandemic exposed the need to move up the timeline of modernisation to combat modern risks and take advantage of the advances it can offer.

Gartner has predicted that by 2025, over 50 percent of government agencies will have modernised critical core legacy applications to improve resilience and agility.

2. Adaptive security

Adaptive security is about meeting the needs of modern dispersed infrastructure as opposed to the traditional perimeter approach.

It anticipates and mitigates constantly evolving threats using prediction, prevention, detection and response.

Gartner has predicted that 75 percent of government CIOs will be directly responsible for security outside of IT by 2025, including operational and mission-critical technology environments.

3. Anything as a service (XaaS)

Government will not be immune to the trend toward subscription services.

XaaS offers an alternative to legacy infrastructure modernisation, provides scalability and reduces time to deliver digital services.

According to Gartner, 95 percent of new IT investments made by government agencies will be made as a service solution by 2025.

4. Case management as a service (CMaaS)

Casework is the predominant workstyle of government and currently relies on legacy tech. 

CMaaS applies composable business principles and practices, to replace legacy case management systems with modular products that can be adjusted in response to changing needs.

Gartner research shows that by 2024, government organisations with a composable case management application architecture will implement new features at least 80 percent faster than those without.

5. Citizen digital identity

A hot-topic already, governments are looking at ways to allow citizens to prove their identity via any digital channel, which is critical for inclusion and access to government services. 

Gartner has stated that a true global, portable, decentralised identity standard will emerge in the market by 2024, to address business, personal, social and societal, and identity-invisible use cases.

6. Composable government enterprise

The composable government enterprise is any government organisation that adopts composable design principles, enabling them to extend the reuse of capabilities and continuously adapt to changing regulatory, legislative and public expectations. 

Fifty percent of technology companies that provide products and services to the government will offer packaged business capabilities to support composable applications by 2023, according to Gartner.

7. Data sharing as a program

Data sharing is often limited and ad hoc in government, driven by high-profile use cases such as child protection incidents or gender violence that cannot easily be generalised. 

Data sharing as a program moves it into being a scalable service, with multiple reusable capabilities.

Gartner has predicted that by 2023, 50 percent of government organisations will establish formal accountability structures for data sharing, including standards for data structure, quality and timeliness.

8. Hyperconnected public services

Hyperconnected public services is the whole-of-government use of multiple technologies, tools or platforms to automate as many business and IT processes as possible. 

Hyperautomation principles and practices can develop hyperconnected, highly automated end-to-end processes and public services.

According to Gartner, 75 percent of governments will have at least three enterprise-wide hyperautomation initiatives launched or underway by 2024

9. Multichannel citizen engagement

This approach allows constituents to efficiently connect with their government seamlessly across different channels.

Over 30 percent of governments will use engagement metrics to track the quantity and quality of citizen participation in policy and budget decisions by 2024, Gartner predicted.

10. Operationalised analytics

Applying intelligent analytics to operational activities will help guide government decision-makers on improving citizen experience in real-time.

Gartner has said that by 2024, 60 percent of government AI and data analytics investments aim to directly impact real-time operational decisions and outcomes.