Technically Speaking

Since early 2020, COVID-19 has forced us to work in ways we couldn’t have expected or anticipated. Some agencies are only now beginning to reopen their central workplaces. Others never will. As we navigate the return-to-office journey, we’re only at the very beginning of what’s certain to be a monumental change in how and where people work, and how space is managed. As organizations chart a course forward, it’s important to look at what we can reasonably predict, and where we just don’t have answers yet.

The numbers don't lie. The U.S. public sector is rapidly adopting cloud technologies across the spectrum. According to the NASCIO 2020 State CIO Survey, only 14% of state chief information officer (CIO) organizations do not have a cloud migration strategy, whereas 41% of respondents indicated that they had implemented a cloud first strategy for all new applications.

We’re in the month of September, the busiest time of the year for those selling to the Federal government. When the dust has settled on Q4 of this federal fiscal year, our customers will have spent roughly $30 billion in “fall out money” on IT. That’s a term for funding agencies and offices will lose if they don’t allocate it by September 30. If an office, agency, or department leaves appropriated funds on the table, they’ll have a hard time justifying why they need the same or higher funding levels the following year, hence the year-end rush.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been disruptive to physical workplaces for so many reasons. One of the biggest challenges for businesses has been adapting offices to new and often equally disruptive safety standards – social distancing, sanitization, contact tracing, etc. While there’s keen emphasis on these practices, indoor air quality (IAQ) in many offices is only now getting the attention it deserves.

Current IT modernization initiatives are challenging federal agencies to implement significant changes to their infrastructure at a breakneck pace. As they look to keep pace with an increasingly sophisticated cyber threat environment and accommodate workflows shifting to the cloud, the federal government is looking to zero trust as a solution. Zero trust is a security model that maintains secure access to data and applications based on dynamic security policies reacting to access request specifics, as opposed to the network from where access originates.

DLT’s Chief Data Scientist, Sherry Bennett, recently sat down recently with Lora L. Allen, Medallia’s Public Sector Principal CX Advisor and discussed her service in the public sector, Lora’s role at Medallia helping educate and advise government agencies that are tackling CX challenges, and more. Q: Prior to joining Medallia, you spent your entire career in public service, can you kindly tell me how your service has shaped and informed your current focus on customer experience?