Accenture Federal Technology Vision 2020:
FIVE TRENDS
DEFINING
POST-DIGITAL
GOVERNMENT

We are now in a post-digital world.

Our personal lives are so intertwined with technology today that we often don’t even think about digital as an option for engaging with the world around us—it has simply become our default. And this trend has only accelerated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with remote work, Zoom happy hours, and touchless transactions now the norm.

The challenge is that many enterprises, including federal agencies, are struggling to keep pace, as they are still in the early stages of their digital transformation.

It seems much longer ago, but it has been only eight years since the federal government embarked upon a vision, called Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People, to modernize itself as an entity that embraces innovation, operates digitally, and fully leverages data to enhance decision-making. While progress varies, most agencies today are well down the path of their digital makeovers. But no matter how much progress they make, they seem always to be playing catch-up with the expectations of the tech-savvy citizens they serve.

The national security community is not immune from these challenges either. Defense organizations, slowed by arcane business processes and an accumulated technical debt, often struggle to keep pace with the rapidly advancing state of commercial technology. This has given more nimble nation states the potential to reap battlefield advantages by incorporating these innovations more quickly.

To better appreciate the increasing importance and prevalence of technology today, consider these data points from new Accenture research:

Given this starring role technology increasingly plays in our lives, it makes sense that we take technology personally and expect much more from it. In fact, we are seeing signs that our unconditional love for unlimited technology is fading. People are reevaluating their digital relationships with businesses and governments—and reexamining whether the value those enterprises deliver is fully aligned with their core values.

Citizens, for example, may chafe against government digital services that lack transparency in the decisions they make or the privacy protections they offer. They may bristle at having to fill in the same information about themselves with every digital interaction. They have concerns about the role that artificial intelligence plays in government decisions that affect their lives. Despite broadly using and benefitting from technology, people are expressing concerns about how it is used and what it is used for—and they are advocating for change.

Government employees—from benefits administrators and nurses to warfighters and intelligence analysts—experience similar frustrations on a daily basis. Too often, agencies operate based on technology constraints versus the needs of the mission. What workers need are empowering digital tools worthy of the often complex and critical challenges that they face.

Tech-lash or Tech-clash?

Some are referring to today’s environment as a “tech-lash,” or backlash against technology. But that description fails to account for the fact that we’re using technology more than ever. It would be more accurate to think of it as a tech-clash — a collision between old technology models that are incongruous with people’s current expectations.

The chief take-away here is that we don’t just want more technology in our products and services; we want technology that is more human-centered and that appreciates our personal values and desire for greater control in how we interact digitally with our government.

This presents an important opportunity for government agencies as they proceed along their transformation journeys. We can’t simply continue to bolt-on digital technologies to legacy operating models. Rather, we need to reimagine how we work and deliver services to take full advantage of our new digital capabilities. This becomes especially important as we navigate the expansion of AI, creating the need to rebalance the relationship between humans and machines.

Agencies can diffuse this tech-clash and foster more trusting relationships by making transparency, accountability, and collaboration the new litmus tests for future engagements. They will need to empathize with the individual using their services by incorporating human-centered design models. In other words, success will require an innovative approach to innovation itself.