Public sector agencies rely more on legacy systems than organizations in other industries.
Many of these systems were, at one time or another, best-in-class.
Compared to more modern solutions, however, legacy solutions are less secure, less efficient, and more resource-intensive.
In other words, they're showing their age.
In Canada, for instance, 51% of public sector personnel feel that technical debt limits their ability to provide the necessary digital services. Another 25% felt technical debt accounted for up to half their total operating budget.
The United States is in a similar boat, with most of the federal government's annual $100 billion technology budget going toward maintaining and operating existing systems.
Consequently, public sector organizations that migrate to the cloud can leave behind time sinks and technical debt, consolidating their technology stack to enable more effective, efficient, and secure operations.
Let's talk about what that looks like, using our own platform — Sparkrock 365 — as an example.
There are a lot of costs associated with legacy tools, which typically require capital-intensive on-premises hardware. In addition to being expensive to operate and maintain, this hardware also severely limits an agency's ability to adapt to evolving demands. For example, scaling operations to accommodate growth, increased workloads, or new service requirements often requires significant upfront investments—not to mention the time personnel must spend on maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting.
Right out of the gate, a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform does away with the need for on-site hardware. It leaves behind expensive IT investments in favor of either a recurring subscription or consumption-based licensing. Reduced total cost of ownership aside, this pricing model also makes it easier to dynamically scale resources with demand.
The financial benefits of cloud ERP software are far more significant than reduced spending, however. Sparkrock 365 empowers your team with distributed budget planning, automated tracking, and real-time visibility of every dollar that passes through your agency. The platform also provides world-class analytics and insights into spending through Microsoft Power BI dashboards.
Human resources and payroll operations tend to be quite complex, especially at the federal level. Managing everything by hand is consequently an extremely time-consuming and error-prone undertaking. In extreme cases, this can lead directly into a sort of vicious cycle.
Overwhelmed and overworked HR personnel struggle to keep up with the demands of their positions. Administrative bottlenecks begin to form. Employees elsewhere in the organization run headlong into these frustrating roadblocks, impacting their job satisfaction and overall morale.
Cloud-based ERP solutions like Sparkrock 365 address this paradigm through fully-integrated accounting, reporting, and payroll features such as:
In the public sector, accountability is everything. Unfortunately, for agencies with legacy systems, this usually means countless hours spent tracking down and validating information for reports and audits. It's a state of affairs that can make regulatory compliance feel like an uphill battle.
Cloud software solves this problem in a few ways. First, it establishes a single source of truth for all organizational data, breaking down data silos to ensure information is as accurate as possible. What's more, it collects this information through a combination of built-in auditing functionality and optimized data entry, reducing administrative workloads while also decreasing the chance of error.
There's a common misconception about cloud software that needs to be put to rest: The idea that it's in any way less secure than on-premises solutions. The truth is that in today's landscape, cloud platforms are often more secure than their legacy alternatives. That's certainly the case with Sparkrock 365.
Powered by Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, our platform provides clients with Microsoft's industry-leading security, ensuring your systems remain both protected and compliant. Moreover, Microsoft's infrastructure allows us to support more sophisticated security than most on-premises solutions. We're also fully committed to helping clients maintain their data sovereignty.
Lastly, let's talk about something that's been front-of-mind for everyone over the past few years: AI. It's a technology with the power to completely transform how your agency operates, unlocking new opportunities, innovations, and efficiencies. That's why we've invested in turning Sparkrock 365 into a cutting-edge, AI-driven ERP platform.
Among other things, Sparkrock 365 uses artificial intelligence to:
The public sector is no stranger to legacy technology, not in the least because legacy solutions are often the only ones that exist for certain use cases. If your agency is among those that hasn't yet migrated, you should start thinking about doing so. We'll help you leave behind any systems you don't need — and modernize those systems you do. Contact us to book a demo and get started.