Building the Enterprise - Booz Allen Hamilton

STRATEGY 6MANAGE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYAS A TRUE ENTERPRISE RESOURCEInformation technology services areamong the most common services ingovernment. Every agency providesa range of them, from email and datastorage to desktop support and serverfarms. Most recently, agencieshave begun deploying cloud-basedapplications to support everythingfrom time-keeping to supply-chainmanagement. With few exceptions,these services follow the traditionalstovepiped model of government,with each agency approaching andduplicating them separately. Thissituation represents a perfect opportunityto achieve real efficienciesby taking an interagency, enterpriseapproach to common IT services.Today the government spendsroughly $80 billion annually on IT—$55 billion of it on operating andmaintaining existing systems, therest on buying and developing systems.Duplication is rampant andopportunities for enterprise savingsare huge.The Obama administration hasdirected all federal chief informationofficers to take a shared approachto providing IT resources. The CIOCouncil’s Federal Information TechnologyShared Service Strategy, issuedMay 2, 2012, directs agencies to“move from independent silos of capability(some of which are duplicative)toward an integrated matrix ofshared services that provide IT capabilitiesacross the entire agency.” 7The administration also has directedagency chief operating officersto lead annual IT portfolio reviews,known as “PortfolioStats,” to shoreup or end those that are performing7 Executive Office of the President, FederalInformation Technology Shared ServicesStrategy (Washington, DC, May 2, 2012);http://whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/egov_docs/shared_services_strategy.pdf. Last accessed Jul. 26, 2013.poorly and eliminate those that areduplicative or not well aligned withagency missions or business functions.The process was designed toachieve a savings of 10 percent in ITcosts for each agency, 5 percent ofwhich could be given back to agenciesto reinvest in citizen-facing,cybersecurity or employee engagementprojects, according to FederalCIO Steven VanRoekel.The administration’s sharedservices strategy directs agenciesto begin by consolidating commodityIT services such as help desks,email, print and website management,online collaboration and mobile/wirelessservices, and providingthem as shared services withinagencies. Then, agencies are to expandthe shared-first approach fromcommodity IT to mission-supportIT used in government-wide functions,such as financial and recordsmanagement. When a business case,including a cost comparison, showsit makes sense to outsource to across-agency IT shared service provider,agencies are expected to do sorather than standing up or continuingagency-specific systems.This plan for cross-agencyshared IT services is a move in theright direction, but it needs to bemore aggressively pursued. Thefocus on enhancing IT capabilityshould be expanded into a portfolioapproach to all IT resources acrossthe federal enterprise, not just withinagencies.We recommend that the federalchief information officer and theCIO Council give more power andcohesion to these cross-agency effortsby leading the developmentand execution of a true enterpriseinformation technology strategy asan initiative under the enterpriseperformance plan described in Strategy1. This strategy should bundleIT shared services into portfolios(for example, an email portfolio or acloud portfolio) and designate goalleaders to maximize each portfolio’senterprise value, functionality, efficiencyand effectiveness.This does not necessarily requirea monolithic approach. But itdoes mean that IT, including physicalassets such as data centers andserver farms, will be consideredenterprise or whole-government assets,not the property of individual“This [administration’s] planfor cross-agency shared ITservices is a move in the rightdirection, but it needs to bemore aggressively pursued.”BUILDING THE ENTERPRISE 17