Data Expands, Extends and Optimizes the Value of Work in Government

This blog post is an excerpt from GovLoop’s recent guide “7 Tips to Transform Your Data Into Compelling Stories.” Download the full guide here.

Not only is the amount of data rapidly increasing in government, but the potential value of data is growing as well. Predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are broadening the use cases for data and in turn unshackling productivity for government employees.

To inform agencies about how they can unlock the value of their data, GovLoop interviewed Brian Chidester, Senior Industry Strategist for Public Sector at OpenText. OpenText is an enterprise information management partner that helps government agencies increase efficiency and deliver better services with departmentwide solutions.

Government archives used to be where data went to die. After information was collected, it was retained for compliance and records purposes, but it rarely was acted upon. Now, in an era of powerful computerization, digital governments cannot afford to operate in the same way.

When data is standardized and aggregated in one place, organizations can adopt the solutions that will allow for greater productivity and produce better results. These solutions, such as AI and automation, represent the future of work in government.

So far, though, the proliferation of data often overwhelms agencies. Information collection, standardization and archiving occupy incredible amounts of time, and as such, important responsibilities are often postponed or ignored. Enabled by access to agency data, AI can remove many of these responsibilities, alleviating the overload of work currently in government.

Meanwhile, much of the manual work that employees have to do is laborious and tedious, involving scrolling through documents or scanning spreadsheets. Bringing in automation and AI can ease the burden on employees and perform these exacting tasks more accurately and more quickly.

Finally, value expands when data is actionable and available. Cyber incidents, for example, are too frequent to study each case, but with enterprisewide analytics and AI capabilities, trends are easily analyzed to reveal security improvements.

OpenText helps enable these solutions. By offering enterprise information management solutions, OpenText allows government to manage the full lifecycle of its data and bring in technologies like AI and automation to expand, extend and optimize the value of work.

Chidester said that agencies cannot forget about the people side of data required to transition to the future of work. OpenText worked with the Canadian government, for example, to design a digital strategy to help guide their 10-year digital transformation, accounting for recruitment, retirement and retention.

“As they’re looking to shift from low-value to high-value work, making sure that these employees are ready for that and prepared for that high-value type of work is crucial,” Chidester said.