The customer-centric digital government initiatives fostered by President Barack Obama face major challenges under the incoming administration, according to a new report from Rick Parish, an analyst at Forrester Research.
Examining the promises and transition activities of President-elect Donald Trump and his team, Parrish believes there will be an upcoming focus on buying customer interaction technologies from the private sector, rather than building them internally, and the digital experience will suffer as digital services championed under Obama are slowed or even reversed.
Parrish projects 2017 spending on customer interaction technologies — including software, hardware and services to engage with customers digitally, use analytics for better service delivery and pursue internet of things initiatives — will remain flat.
Current customer experience could even suffer as the fear of being hacked will push agency leaders to quickly implement cybersecurity measures without sufficient input from digital experience designers, and new services will only slowly roll out to avoid introducing new vulnerabilities.
Parrish thinks most Obama-era designers and developers will remain in the federal workforce, even as traditionalist managers strengthen efforts to roll back what they claim are restrictive or burdensome cross-agency customer service regulations.
Parrish feels there are strong indications that 18F and the U.S. Digital Services will be gutted in a push to buy from the private sector rather than build, which will benefit traditional tech contractors over tech startups, as the Trump transition team has shown a preference for big business veterans. The 18F and USDS will continue, but with a much more modest mission of tech acquisition.
The two initiatives that could thrive are the DATA Act’s push for a governmentwide, standardized publication of spending data, helping the private sector leverage resources and platforms, as well as Department of Veterans Affairs’ customer-facing technology investments.
The full report can be found on Forrester’s website.
