Govt. as an entity also progresses through same phases of transformation that an industry follows. It is also going through three stages of Digital Transformation. Engagement of industry for delivery of various projects also evolves to align with the stage of transformation.
Stage-1 Digitization:
A decade (2001-2010) converted and organized the information from paper form to digital form. Most Govt. programs were designed to digitize internal processes of departments and ministries. Large and stand-alone software systems were built to IT-enable various departments and ministries, web-based citizen services platforms were built for Govt. Ministries and CSC to deliver services effectively.
Most of these IT projects required custom software development and IT Services companies were primary industry participants in these projects.
Stage-2 Digitalization:
In a fast paced environment, next decade (2011-2020) automated and streamlined manual processes to IT enabled processes. Web based projects and solutions became mobile first bringing more effortlessness and effectiveness in delivering citizen services. Internal process automation systems have been augmented with reports, dashboards and KPIs to support Govt. Decision making.
These solutions and extensions leveraged ready COTS products increasing importance of System Integrators.
Stage-3 Digital Transformation:
In last 2-3 years, Digital Transformation in e-Governance is leading to new innovative projects that leverage latest technologies (AI/ML, IoT, Blockchain) require some custom modules/parts to be developed with niche expertise
Govt. initiatives in agriculture for crop quality assaying, crop monitoring and damage assessment, crop Insurance require (1) image collection through Drones or Satellite (2) analyzing and processing drone/satellite images by domain experts (3) machine learning on images by ML and domain experts (4) Web/mobile app development as presentation layer.
Initiatives in utility services to improve water quality & availability and to improve power generation & distribution networks will need to leverage (1) data collection through IoT devices (2) analysis and ML by domain and ML experts (3) Web/Mobile based presentation layer.
Initiatives in other segments such as education, transportation, health require solutions and workflows that don’t have COTS ready yet.
These modules require niche skill for custom development and require next stage of evolution in delivery. There are large number of startups that have built solutions and competencies to solve such problems System integrators, instead of customizing/integrating entire solution by themselves, should engage custom solution providers (startups) in these niche areas.
Reference resources
- AWS India Public Sector
- AWS Machine Learning
- AWS IoT
- Satellite Image Processing on AWS
About the author:
Sachin Punyani,
Business Development Lead,
Amazon Internet Services Pvt. Ltd.
