Top trends and priorities focus on digital acceleration, improving citizen experiences and IT modernization

We met with 267 central and federal government executives to gain insights into their top trends, priorities and plans. They cite digital acceleration and social demographic change, including aging populations and talent shortages, as the highest impact macro trends. At the sector level, becoming digital to meet citizen expectations and improving citizen services and experiences remain at the forefront year-over-year. At the same time, driving IT modernization to improve efficiency rose in importance to become this year’s top IT priority. Discover more top trends and priorities.

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Key findings

Legacy system challenges continue
82% say legacy systems are somewhat to very challenging to digital implementation

Hiring IT talent remains difficult
85% cite challenge in acquiring IT talent, 5pp above the all-industries average

Improving processes is key
Digitizing and automating business processes is a top IT priority

Focus on the citizen
Improving services and experiences is the #1 business priority

Modernization on the rise
Those modernizing >20% of IT applications will grow from 40% now, to 61% in 2 years.

Government executive standing in front of building holding eye glasses, laptop and notebook

What digital leaders do to support their strategies

Central and federal government progress in achieving digital strategy results is growing steadily over the past 3 years to 25%, slightly lagging the all-industries average of 30%. When comparing insights from the 25% producing results (digital leaders) to those building or launching digital strategies (digital aspirants), common attributes emerge. The most pronounced advantage for digital leaders over aspirants is their ability to align IT and business operations to support their strategies.

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Highly aligned IT and business operations to support
strategy

Digital leaders

60%

Digital aspirants

23%
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Highly integrated IT and business operations to execute strategy

Digital leaders

47%

Digital aspirants

21%
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Highly agile to address digitization, including technology integration

Digital leaders

31%

Digital aspirants

4%

5 recommendations for creating more agile and responsive services

1

Focus on modernizing legacy systems
to unleash data that supports missions, regulatory development and save costs.
2

Develop a robust talent strategy
to attract younger generations to government roles.
3

Continue automating business processes
to enhance citizen services.
4

Improve citizen experiences
to meet increasing expectations by using a digital-first policy.
5

Pursue collaborative strategies
to benefit from shared values and increase openness to re-use commercial solutions.

 

Glass, round shaped government office building

At CGI, we help central and federal governments to deliver on enhancing citizen services and mitigating cybersecurity risks.

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