A New Year is here, and with it the potential for a vast array of new technologies. 2014 was a year of rapid changes, and there is no sign of a slowdown ahead.
Techwire recently talked to several technology leaders to ask them what they expect to see next and what they think is important for the industry and government in the upcoming year and beyond.
Jason Salzetti, Deloitte
Leader, State of California Practice
2015 is the year that Analytics and Big Data in government become a reality. The mountains of data being generated by recently modernized systems has put pressure on government to make better decisions, improve service delivery and reduce costs. Does providing a new type of insurance coverage result in a healthier population? Will opening a service center in this location provide the most accessible service to the participants in a particular program? Answering these questions is where new advanced analytics capabilities come into play – providing the ability to connect program strategy with data-driven outcomes.
Analytics tools and technology have reached a level of maturity such that they can harvest data from a mission critical system, combine it with internal and external data, perform rapid, complex analytics, and feed the results back into the system to make near real time decisions. A great example is in any government program that is seeking to stop fraud. Combining social media, 3rd party marketing data providers, other government agency data – along with the department’s own internal data – can often result in fraud prevention rather than detection. Preventing a fraudulent payment is far better than detecting a payment after it has already been made and often difficult to recover. What would have once required a sophisticated, expensive data warehouse can be done leveraging open source and cloud based solutions.
As we head into 2015, now is the time for government agencies to identify where this type of advanced analytical capability can make an impact on their operations, service delivery and constituent experience. A great place to start: what are three questions you wish you could answer about your program effectiveness or constituents, but can’t. There’s little reason you can’t answer those questions – and many others – using analytics in 2015.
