Emphasizing Integration Over Acquisition

Quantify your potential government software platform as a truly integrated solution

Given the scope and complexity of modern governance processes and workflows, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify a software solution that can meet or exceed all your project requirements within a single integrated platform—but it is worth the effort.

As the pace of innovation is increasing, so too are the demands for government enterprise software platforms to do it all – particularly in a modern government setting where citizen calls for improved engagement are clashing with the inevitable realities of budget constraints.

To respond to this appetite for solutions that ‘tick all the boxes’, enterprise software providers with more limited platforms have responded by going on a buyer’s spree of mergers or acquisitions to build out a solution that more adequately reflects the needs of the marketplace. While laudable in its pursuit of full feature functionality, the downside of this approach is it often results in poorly integrated software platforms that represent significant challenges in terms of their capabilities for facilitating cost effective implementation, performance, stability and upgradability.

Given the direct impact it can play on both the success of your project implementation as well as the long-term viability of your governance platform, a core aspect of your product evaluation should therefore focus on a comprehensive evaluation of the product pedigree as scored via the following attributes:

• What is the software providers’ core development focus? Is government software their primary mandate, or are they a larger conglomerate dabbling in the space as part of a larger play?
  
  
• What is the development history of the product and is there ample information provided in a transparent fashion that tells this story? What you’re looking for here is a verifiable narrative that confirms a company creating innovative products specific to governance, and refining their platform over time to create a fully integrated, fully realized product suite that stays abreast
  of emerging technology trends.
  
  
• Does the product suite offer a combination of underlying platform configurability and mature COTS products with robust feature sets? This integral combination gives you the best of both worlds enabling ease of configuration for unique business rules, workflows, and operational processes, whilst also providing deep feature product modules with elegant user experiences and robust reporting capabilities.
  
  
• Are there credibility markers that speak to the innovation quality of the product itself? Have the products or underlying platform won awards or industry citations? Does the company follow certified best practices in their development methodologies? If so, how are these certifications maintained and are they current and verifiable?
  
  
• Does the vendor implement their own software solutions or do they outsource implementation via a third party, thus putting them at arms-length for complete project accountability?
  
  
• How agile is the product in both it’s ability to scale and to be reconfigured for different jurisdictional requirements or diverse business models? A hallmark of a well- designed enterprise software platform is the facility of the underlying architecture to accommodate a diverse range of deployment scenarios without cost prohibitive redevelopment.
  
  

Next week, we’ll continue our ongoing series on How to Deploy a Digital Government Platform by showing you how to ‘Evaluate the vendor’s product roadmap to ascertain longterm partner stability and project viability.’