Focusing on citizens and the workforce

The highest impact macroeconomic trend for state, provincial and local government clients in 2022 is technology and digital acceleration, due to rising citizen digital expectations. Changing social demographics, including aging populations and talent shortages, is the next highest impact macro trend, followed by climate change and the energy transition.

Top trends and priorities continue to centre around improving citizen services and experiences. The future of work emerges as a new top trend, especially for business leaders. Additionally, culture change and change management are top barriers to achieving business priorities, while recruitment and retention are increasingly challenging.

Cybersecurity persists as a top concern and priority. Legacy systems pose significant challenges to implementing digital strategies; and, executives indicate significant growth in the use of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, especially among digital leaders.

View key findings from our conversations with state and local government executives in 2022 below, or download our report.

For more insights on macro trends, including social demographics, climate change, deglobalisation, technology acceleration, and supply chain reconfiguration, read our summary.

Top trends and priorities

Top macro trends
  1. Technology and digital acceleration, notably rising customer and citizen digital expectations
  2. Changing social demographics, including aging populations and talent shortages
  3. Climate change, including the energy transition and the acceleration toward decarbonisation
Top industry trends
  1. Becoming digital organisations to meet customer/citizen expectations
  2. Protecting through cybersecurity
  3. The future of work
Top business priorities
  1. Improving citizen services and experience
  2. Protecting the organisation as cyber risks mature
  3. Collaborating across the boundaries of our organisation
Top IT priorities
  1. Digitising and automating business processes to deliver better end-to-end citizen services and reduce costs
  2. Driving IT modernisation to improve efficiency
  3. Protecting through cybersecurity

 

Digitisation, modernisation and cloud are key topics

62%
say digitisation has a high impact on their business models
56%
say legacy systems pose significant challenges to digital strategies
49%
see migrating to cloud providers for IaaS or PaaS in two years

What digital leaders do differently

Among the 21% of state and local government executives who report achieving expected results from their digital strategies, some common attributes emerge. Our table compares responses to questions from these digital leaders to those from executives whose organisations are still building or launching digital strategies (digital entrants). Learn more about the attributes of digital leaders.

Common attributes of digital leaders

Digital leaders

Digital entrants
Drive IT modernisation 50% 26%
Digitise and automate business processes 68% 26%
Have highly agile business models 23% 8%
Establish effective IT roadmaps 77% 32%
See sustainability as core to creating value 46% 36%

Download our 2022 State & Local Government report

 

View past reports