Presentation delivered at Annual Future of Local Government Summit Rydges, Melbourne, Thursday 23rd May 2013 This is a variant of the presentation delivered in April 2013 to the Municipal Association of Victoria

1. Exploring the opportunities and pitfalls
of new and emerging technologies in
Australian local government
Future of Local Government Summit
Rydges, Melbourne
Thursday 23rd
May 2013
© All rights reserved. Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd. Unauthorized redistribution prohibited
without prior approval. ‘Navigating through the Cloud’ and ‘Success is our story, let’s make it
yours’ are Trademarks of Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd.

2. Agenda
Cloud under the
lens

3. Session6
Flickr.com
Technology fuelled Disruption + current climate:
Weathering the sea of perfect storms
A perspective on Emerging Technologies

4. Organisations across the board, are finding themselves in the
‘perfect storm’ arising from the combination of forces:
•The first, and most influential of these forces in my view, is the
increase uncertainty and volatility facing Australian organisations,
whether public, private or government. This tends to drives
technology decision making which is increasingly focussed on the
short term.
•The second influence is the fundamental shift in the expectations of
enterprise IT by other executives and the business as a whole. This
is a direct consequence of having first hand exposure to user
friendly, low cost (or free) consumer grade IT technologies and
solutions, and compelling marketing from IT vendors.
A perspective on Emerging Technologies

5. Organisations across the board, are finding themselves in the
‘perfect storm’ arising from the combination of forces:
•The third is inconsistency of business strategies across
organisations. This presents a challenge for those in IT leadership
roles, who are expected to respond to inconsistent short term
demands, some of which are fragmented, not always well thought
through, potentially contradictory and not always in the long term best
interests of the organisation.
•The fourth is the expectation that IT leadership should not appear as
technologists. The ‘new IT leader’ should be able to communicate
clearly in ‘business speak’ and turn technical, governance and risk
complexity into plain language.
A perspective on Emerging Technologies

6. A perspective on Emerging Technologies
Determining the optimal approach in the
use of Technology for the enterprise is
not a trivial exercise

7. http://info.publicintelligence.net/GlobalTrends2030.pdf
December 2012
Context: Global influences

8. http://info.publicintelligence.net/GlobalTrends2030.pdf
December 2012
Context: Global influences

9. • Potential for cross-organisational collaboration to achieve joint
outcomes using emerging technologies a now reality.
– Question is, what is the appetite for a change from the
organisational perspective.
• The opportunities for LGs to maximise the upside potential of
disruptive, new and emerging technologies exists
– This will, however require a coherent and deliberate ‘umbrella’ IT
strategy
• Fragmentation and inconsistency of existing IT systems,
technologies & related services across LG agencies
contributes to duplication of effort.
Context: Government
(Not in order of importance)

10. • Limited budget and resourcing at LG level to take on major IT
initiatives change
– Seduction of the Cloud computing model – ‘pay as you go’.
• State and Federal Governments collaboration sits astride an
active fault-line with occasional earthquake. A well known
example being healthcare funding.
– Question is: How does this influence LG’s willing and/or
capability to embark on a LG state-wide structural change on
how IT is used?
• LG IT is ‘operational’ and has no real funding for innovation
• Technology initiated disruptive change is the norm, and
responding to this volatility with legacy enterprise IT business
model is neither simple or risk free.
Context: Government
(Not in order of importance)

11. • Budgetary pressures, cost cutting, austerity, uncertainty
contribute to increasingly short term thinking and planning across
all industries, whether public, private or Government. (result of
GFC, deficit reductions and other factors)
– Appetite and capability for making big, bold changes requiring
long term thinking.
– Innovation, speed, agility not easy
• For LG, shifting away from locally developed, bespoke, non-
integrated legacy IT systems with known cost and risk is not a
trivial exercise.
• Ratepayers are increasingly ‘tech savvy’ and increasingly expect
consumer style technology such as ‘apps’, etc
Context: Government
(Not in order of importance)

12. Context – Challenges facing Local Government
What are the key technology challenges facing LG?
1.Seduction of being spoilt for choice: Cloud
2.Political reality
3.Governance
4.Standardisation
Cloud – is it a metaphor for disruption?

13. Context – Challenges facing Local Government
Challenge #1: Seduction of being spoilt for choice: Cloud
•What’s the perceived value of specific cloud offerings, vs. the actual
value.
•Cloud lowers (or can eliminate) the barrier to entry to enterprise IT
systems
•The Cloud market is innovative, volatile and new products and offerings
are appearing on almost a daily basis
•Cloud allows stretched internal LG IT staff to be directed to ‘value
adding’ tasks, not just keeping the lights on.
•‘Pay as you go’ model removes the need for up-front capital investment
which is appealing for organisations that are capital constrained.
•Real risk of a fragmented, inconsistent array of Cloud applications
which are poorly integrated, which could compound the problem
•Showcasing a series of Cloud vendors without understanding the key
organisational drivers or requirements may not be in LG’s best interests

14. Context – Challenges facing Local Government
Challenge #2: Political reality
•At what level of government should the LG technology strategy sit?
•What influence does LG have to elevate the discussion to the Australian
Local Government of Australia (ALGA) (national) level?
•Balance between local ‘loss of control’ and a coherent, well thought
through ‘umbrella’ IT and technology strategy needs to be struck to:
• Maximise ‘value’
• Maximise collaboration between LG councils.
• Minimise cost (Both short term and TCO)
• Minimise risk (or at least identify the risks & mitigate)
• Minimise risks associated with opportunistic vendor predation
• Develop and relevant vendor management strategy

15. Challenge #3: Governance:
•Map the inventory of legislative, policy or other compliance
mandates to your current and any proposed cloud solutions.
•Public Cloud offerings may present a range of challenges to LG in
respect of the various statutes and regulatory mandates (eg:
Privacy using overseas Cloud services).
•Recognise that Cloud may not eliminate the need for effective IT
governance (eg: change control)
Context – Challenges facing Local Government

16. Challenge #3: Governance: New / emerging technologies
•Making sense of the myriad of position papers, guidelines etc across
Federal and State governments no small task.
• For LG: Like drinking from a fire hydrant
•Based on the principle of “Here’s the guidelines, then proceed on an
informed basis!”
Context – Challenges facing Local Government

17. Challenge #4: Standardisation:
•Public Cloud is built on the premise of standardisation. Build
once, use many times allows for greater efficiencies, hence
lower cost.
•The challenge lies in ensuring that, over the life of a specific
Cloud system’s use, if it cannot be configured to meet a
changing environment (eg new legislation), LG may be forced to
adapt or abandon that Cloud system.
•Understand where the real value in the standardisation of so
called, ‘commodity IT services’ using Cloud lies. Eg: email, file
and network storage, etc
Context – Challenges facing Local Government

18. Cloud Computing under the Lens

19. • Real opportunities will be identified through the systematic and
deliberate attention to what is possible, rather than looking for a
solution to fix a problem.
• Emerging can lower IT operational costs – but not always!
• Faster delivery of IT projects and related initiatives
• Increasing organisational agility through the configuration of,
rather than development (e.g. coding) of systems
• Universal access to smart systems using Smartphones can be a
game-changer in delivering services to ratepayers
• Improved coordination between LG services
• Emerging lends itself to pilot project / proof of concept trials for
innovative local initiatives with low penalty costs for failures.
Opportunities of Cloud Computing

20. Some Pitfalls of Cloud
• Lack of clarity over what organisational problem needs solving
by the application of the latest ‘big thing’ in technology
• Fragmented, localised Cloud systems could increase the
systemic (not technical) risk to LG
• Vendor predation and/or individual stakeholders ‘opinions’ are
no substitute to good, well informed commercial decision
making on new technologies.
• Adopting Cloud without knowing your exit or ‘transition-out’
strategy at the start
• Inappropriate pre-purchase due diligence leading to real
problems
• Lack of visibility of total cost of ownership
• Legal and jurisdictional issues associated with overseas Cloud
providers

21. • Integrating Cloud systems with any others can be costly & complex
• Security – You are at the mercy of the provider’s standards
• Business Continuity
• Identity Management
• Forensics
• Contractual complexity
….. To name but a few
Some Pitfalls of Cloud

22. • Recognise that Cloud computing is only one of a number of
new and emerging, potentially disruptive technologies
• Clarify what problems you’re trying to fix first, then identify the
potential solutions
• Do not necessarily, make public Cloud, or any specific
technology your default position without careful assessment.
• Due diligence is the weapon of choice in the fight against
future systemic risks.
What next?

23. W: www.rob-livingstone.com
E: rob@rob-livingstone.com
P: +61 2 8005 1972
M: +61 419 632 673
F: +61 2 9879 5004
Tw: @rladvisory
ROB LIVINGSTONE
- Fellow, University of Technology, Sydney
- Principal, Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd
Thank You!
© All rights reserved. Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd. Unauthorized
redistribution prohibited without prior approval. ‘Navigating through the
Cloud’ and ‘Success is our story, let’s make it yours’ are Trademarks of Rob
Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd.