In an online study conducted by Compass Intelligence, 82 Government decision-makers responded to the questions raised regarding their IT/Telecom priorities for 2012. The study presents interesting parallels and contrasts. Respondents within the government vertical emphasized on security, and data as well as physical security. 57% of these respondents cited the importance of increasing data security and 30% favored IP-based surveillance for physical security. This is in stark contrast with the 2341 decision maker respondents from the overall business pool. While the maximum emphasis was on physical security, the percentage of respondents rooting for it was a moderate 39%. Next in line were e-commerce, cloud services, virtualization and video conferencing, in that order. Physical security featured along with cloud based storage were among the list of priorities. It is thus clear that the overall business consensus is leaning towards reduction in operation costs and improvement in operational efficiencies once data security is established.
Government respondents place a premium on physical security, reflecting the safety first philosophy. Business effectiveness improvement and virtualization feature in the list once safety is established. Again, government respondents display their distinctive preference for video conferencing. It should be noted that government departments are usually endowed with generous bandwidth which prompts them into using video conferencing more liberally than their private sector counterparts. Cloud figures next. Government respondents recognize that cloud services are fast becoming a great way to combine virtualization and to reduce costs while increasing efficiency. Fewer government decision-makers are putting a priority on the adoption of hosted services, instead focusing on cloud solutions.
Top IT & Telecom Priorities for 2012 in the US Government Market
The U.S. Government, including Federal, State and Local areas, have continued to look to grants and funding from federal government programs to implement large IT projects and investments. The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, as well as the HITECH Act, did have an impact on IT spending but at a much less rate than what was expected. Most of the technology funding affected Schools, Hospitals, and to some extent Public Safety and the Military.
There are a number of technology areas impacting overall government spending today including Cloud Computing, Mobility Solutions, Social Media, Private High-speed Networks, Data Analytics, and government-ready devices whether used in the military or civilian agencies and departments. Despite budget shortfalls, especially at the local levels, spending is primarily focused on short-term projects and contracts and RFPs are continuing to focus on lowest bid wins. The government is continuing to look to the web for social interaction, community services, and web-based services. There was a major growth in municipalities and local governments, as well as state agencies, adding a number of online-based transaction services online including services to pay for parking tickets, renew drivers licenses, pay taxes, and other citizen-based services. At the federal level, spending has somewhat subsided for deployed military technology solutions and there is a stronger focus on civilian-based agencies and departments in terms of technology spending. There are a number of federal agencies really struggling including the U.S. Post Office and the majority of departments dealing with Finances, Lending, and Monetary responsibilities. These federal departments are expected to be less of an opportunity over the next few years. Altogether, budgets continue to be challenges and follow a conservative path, and opportunities revolve around data networks, mobility, cloud, and 3rd party services such as Managed and Hosted solutions.
Related Reports:
- US Government IT Expenditures By Government Level, 2011-2016
- US Government Telecom Services & Equipment Expenditures By Government Level, 2011-2016
- US Government Wireless Equipment Expenditures By Size of Business, 2011-2016
Related Research:
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Stephanie Atkinson - Managing Partner at Compass Intelligence, High-Tech Consultant/Analyst, Mother, TX Aggie, Dallas native, TX hillcountry resident, Interests: Tech, Telecom, Mobility, M2M,and the use of Tech in business. You can reach her at satkinson@compassintelligence.com or follow her on twitter (@stephatkins).