IDC PeerScape: Practices for Successful Smart State Transformation
Mar 2018
While there has been tremendous focus on smart cities in the past few years, in the US, smart states and regional governments also need to play a role. IDC and the state of Illinois have identified this triple role as:
The state of Illinois has been putting the concept of the Smart State into action.
Scoring the bottom quartile of the 2014 Digital States Survey was the catalyst for widespread a shift to the State of Illinois’ technology practices and approach to Digital Transformation. It began with leadership and commitment at top levels. The State CIO had both public and private experience and the support of the governor’s office to revise the role of technology and data and digitally transform to a “smart state.” Illinois aimed to improve services, attract business, and raise the economic standing and global competiveness of the state.
Ruthbea Yesner, Vice President, Government Insights and Smart Cities, IDC
Major challenges included overcoming moribund procurement processes and other entrenched ways of operating outdated in the digital age. Approaches for smart states also have to be flexible enough to work for both urban and rural areas. But smart states are also able to provide regional structural solutions as well as use their procurement power to include smaller areas and municipalities that previously found innovative technology out of reach.
In 2015, Illinois gathered a focused group of private sector advisors, and later conducted larger thought leadership workshops with over 200 participants from industry, academia, research organizations, and the public sector. This expertise helped create a vision and strategy for smarter, more innovative government and services. The strategy had statewide, national, and international contexts to leverage relationships and expertise worldwide.
Once they had a clear strategy and roadmap, the focus shifted to short-term achievable projects that fed into longer-term priorities in three key areas:
Early in the journey the state created a baseline to more accurately measure the results of the endeavor.
Initiatives and areas for public/private partnerships range from infrastructure to social services, including streamlining processes, smarter streetlighting, traffic controls, utility and environmental monitoring, and citizen services.
The CIO and his team called on IDC resources in a number of areas:
IDC has identified a number of practices for successful smart state transformation. To learn more, contact IDC’s Smart City practice at insights@idc.com.
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