IT Transformation Brings Government and Tech Industry Closer Together

Planning for the future demands transformation. In the public sector, achieving success means reinventing — not recreating — the delivery of critical services across a wide range of functional areas, including defense, public safety, justice, human services, public health, revenue and education. The key to success is cost effectively improving the delivery of critical services by unlocking the potential of technology to create the government of the future. I recently sat down with Mike Maiorana, senior vice president of public sector markets for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, to hear his perspectives on the critical technology and business challenges and opportunities for 2015.

Mike Maiorana, SVP, Public Sector, Verizon Enterprise Solutions

Transformation requires incredible talent. The White House recently launched an initiative to recruit the “best and brightest” in technology to improve government technology systems. Do you think this effort will succeed?

Maiorana: It’s an important step in the right direction, but it raises a bigger question. Is the best, brightest and youngest technology talent looking to move into government service? Is the allure of working for the government the same as it was 20 or 25 years ago? The success of this initiative will come down to execution.

The government needs to attract talent for its mission to develop innovative solutions that deliver great services for the American people. To attract talent and raise its tech IQ, the government needs to align itself with and understand what the best and the brightest — from universities, technology companies and sector leaders across vertical industries, such as finance and healthcare — are doing to identify innovative ways to achieve its objectives.

Last year saw its fair share of sequestration and budget cuts. How does this impact public sector adoption of transformative IT solutions and services?

Maiorana: While it seems sacrilegious to say so, budget cuts aren’t the inherent demise of innovation. On one hand, tighter budgets can hinder the procurement of forward-thinking IT solutions and services. On the other, lean budgets can ultimately increase the level of IT service adoption because government is focused on delivering the highest level of efficiency at a lower cost. Government agencies shouldn’t have to decide between best price and best solution. A critical piece of Verizon’s strategy hinges on making sure IT and procurement can balance efficiency and cost to deliver the solutions that government requires to meet its objectives.

What are the most common concerns you hear from federal customers about adopting IT solutions, such as cloud?

Maiorana: We have cloud engagements across every type of government entity — federal, state, local and education. The discussions about cloud always come down to cost, security and talent. Will I really save money? Will my data be secure? Do I have the workforce that knows enough about this type of migration to pull it off? We’re seeing much higher adoption of cloud amongst public sector agencies than a year ago.

The most forward-thinking agencies have an ongoing commitment and process to thoroughly vet the return on investment (ROI) and security of moving workloads into the cloud, which has allowed them to get out in front of others and implement cloud-based solutions to deliver constituent services and operate efficiently and effectively. Our data center campuses in Miami and Culpeper, Virginia, are purpose-built facilities designed to government specifications and underscore our commitment to delivering Verizon cloud services to federal agencies.

The growth of public and private security risks and data breaches undoubtedly gives public sector agencies pause when it comes to adopting IT solutions. How can you overcome that challenge?

Maiorana: Again, it’s about replicating, not reinventing the wheel. A large amount of global IT traffic traverses over Verizon networks, enabling our team of security analysts to identify and, in many cases, prevent cyberattacks before they have a negative operational impact on government and commercial IT systems.

In the federal government space, our Government Network Operations and Security Center — a 30,000-square-foot, multimillion-dollar facility built to government security standards — provides managed network services and managed security-service operations for civilian, defense and intelligence agencies. We also offer specialized security services to the federal government. One example is Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Service, which efficiently integrates individual network services into a common solution to provide a secure connection for federal agencies’ Internet traffic.

What will be the government’s ticket to transformation?

The replication of a shared services model. Public sector agencies can deliver incredible innovation by replicating rather than customizing solutions that have a proven ROI in agencies with similar needs and constituents. If it’s good enough for one public safety agency, shouldn’t it be good enough for another one? The FedRAMP initiative — the result of an innovative public-private partnership — offers a good template of a program that helps reduce duplicative efforts and inconsistencies by offering agencies a standardized approach to assess the security of cloud services and products.