How technology is transforming the work of governments

Governments have the ultimate responsibility to their citizens. People depend on the services they provide like no other institution. Whether in healthcare, education, business, roads, railways, water – it’s essential that government institutions are always at the forefront of social and digital trends.

Cloud-powered technologies are playing a critical role in helping government agencies to revolutionise the way they work – and allowing them to provide their vital services in new and innovative ways. Now, they are better able to engage and connect with their citizens, collaborate both internally and externally, and enhance services that let them reach transparency and sustainability goals.

How cloud technologies can help government logistics

Government institutions are, by their nature, layered and complex structures. And it’s for that reason that the success of the services they deliver depends so much on having the right logistical support in place.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in education. We often think of a school’s achievement as being evidence only of excellent work in the classroom. But the issue of budgeting and resource management is often what makes the difference between an average and a high-achieving school.

Take the Skövde municipality in Sweden, for example, which invests significantly in education at all levels. In order to effectively manage the complex educational logistics for its schools, and balance the budget across all aspects, the municipality used cloud-based technology to model the school budgets in resource planning, gaining full visibility across all teaching services and related spending.

This has helped the municipality boost student performance and achieve the type of results they hadn’t seen in over a decade.

Providing better healthcare for less

Perhaps the only thing more important than education is a country’s health service, which is quite literally its life source. But with patients requiring ever-more complex and costly healthcare, hospitals and other medical providers are faced with a real challenge to modernise while tackling substantial budget restrictions.

Then there are the logistic considerations to take into account. Not all medical facilities exist in urban areas with good transport links. And for those in more sparsely populated and rural areas, reaching their patients is also an issue.

This is precisely the case for leading Swedish public healthcare provider, Region Jämtland Härjedalen (RJH). They have been taking on the challenge of delivering affordable, high-quality care to their 130,000 inhabitants, many of whom live far from medical facilities. To do this, they’ve positioned themselves at the cutting-edge of e-health development by deploying Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, all while managing a considerable budget deficit.

The results have been transformative, both for their staff and the patients they care for.

Boosting business with Microsoft Office 365

And just as important as managing its public services, governments must also do what they can to create a fertile ground for a thriving private sector. A country’s business landscape is like a flower: the more you water it, the more it grows. Neglect it, and it withers.

Take for example the Swedish government and Business Sweden, designated to help Swedish companies grow their global sales and encourage international companies to invest and expand in the country.

But managing an operation on so many levels, and that requires so much travel, is both complex and demanding. When Business Sweden transitioned to Microsoft Office 365, that challenge became a whole lot easier.

By modernising the workplace the organisation has improved collaboration, is better able to attract and retain the best talent, as well as seeing significant cost savings.