Join Carahsoft at Agentforce World Tour D.C.

Posted on by Bethany Blackwell

Are you ready to explore the future of AI-powered CRM and connect with industry leaders? Join Carahsoft at the Agentforce World Tour D.C. on March 19 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center! At this year’s event, experience exciting and informative demos, expert-led sessions and innovative speakers informing on the latest industry trends and products available. Explore virtual, hands-on trainings to learn how Salesforce can support your organization’s productivity and delivering modernized solutions.

Why Attend?

As a proud Groundbreaker sponsor, Carahsoft is excited to showcase how we are helping Public Sector organizations leverage Salesforce’s innovative solutions. Visit our booth #102 in the Campground (exhibit hall) to gain insights on:

How AI is revolutionizing government service delivery

Success stories from federal agencies leveraging Salesforce

Ways to maximize your existing Salesforce investments

Featured Government Sessions

Do not miss these insightful sessions focused on Public Sector innovation:

AI for Government: Responsible Implementation Strategies

FedRAMP and Compliance: Navigating Security in the Cloud

Digital Service Transformation: Agency Success Stories

Meet Our Leadership Team

Connect in person with Carahsoft’s onsite Salesforce leadership team members:

Bethany Blackwell, Kate McDonald, Victoria Ritter, Tyler Miller, Stephen Dickerson, Allison Mackin, Brian Mays, Kathryn Rodriguez, Terra Fawley, Kelsey Hall, Giovanni Rodriguez, Laura Howton, Sebastian Pagliarello and Tayo Akinduro.

The #1 Networking Event: Public Sector Reception

Continue the conversation at the anticipated after-party of Agentforce World Tour D.C.!

Details:

Date: March 19

Location: Planet Word Museum, Washington, D.C.

Time: 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Join Government leaders, Salesforce experts and industry partners at our annual reception that brings together the entire Public Sector Salesforce ecosystem for an evening of networking and collaboration.

Carahsoft Salesforce Agentforce World Tour Blog Embedded Image 2025

Event Sponsors

We thank our reception sponsors who make this premier networking event possible:

Slalom, Brite Systems, S-Docs, IBM, Booz Allen, Southpoint Consulting, Sprout Social, Flosum, Odaseva, MB&A/Gridmate, ThunderYard, Higher Echelon, V3 Gate, Second Front, Copado, Provar and Accenture.

Cannot Make It to D.C.?

The Agentforce World Tour is coming to a city near you! Contact Salesforcemarketing@carahsoft.com to learn how we can partner at upcoming events:

April 14: Denver

April 24: Minneapolis

May 21: NYC

June 26: Boston

October 14-16: San Francisco at Dreamforce

Additionally, join us one of our collaborative Innovation Days events featuring Salesforce, tailored specifically for State, Local and Education agencies within the Public Sector. Check out the full line up of cities and dates coming up soon!

With the rise of AI in business, agencies and organizations must ensure they are modernizing to utilize the unlimited potential of AI in the Public Sector. Whether you are new to Salesforce or familiar with all Agentforce World Tour has to offer, join us to engage in a full day of innovation and pursuing the advantages AI and other technologies.

Register with Carahsoft now and secure your spot at Agentforce World Tour D.C. to learn more about how Salesforce can help your agency modernize and improve efficiency!

Accelerating Mission Success with Technology

Posted on by Bethany Blackwell

The pandemic triggered disruptions to supply chains, workforce management and other daily government operations. Rather than abating, those challenges have continued to evolve. The war in Ukraine has brought new security concerns, and financial uncertainties have made it even more imperative for government agencies to be able to pivot quickly. Digital transformation is essential to meet such ever-changing, unpredictable demands. Flexible, cost-effective technology solutions enable government agencies to analyze data for better decision-making in areas as diverse as cybersecurity, public health and military operations. Investments in modern technologies have the added benefit of making government work more attractive to talented professionals with innovative ideas and a willingness to try new approaches. Such people are a crucial element of any digital transformation. Learn how you can rethink every aspect of operations in ways that spur innovation and advance the ability to respond to new challenges and opportunities as quickly as they arise in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government® report.

How Connected Data Heals the Post-COVID Supply Chain

“Public-sector leaders need to think big, start small and scale fast. The best approach is to pick a chunk of the business that is consequential and show everyone incremental results. Executive buy-in is also important but sometimes comes later, after several bottom-up iterations that are so successful they are impossible to overlook. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s new grants portal is an excellent example. The end-to- end, FedRAMP-authorized system gives NTIA and its customers the digital tools they need to apply for broadband grant programs and support the government’s management of the projects funded with the grants.”

Read more insights from Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Allan Day, Ph.D., Vice President of Logistics/Sustainment of Global Public Sector at Salesforce.

Technology Expands Access and Reduces Public Health Service Challenges

“Digitization helps health workforce challenges as well as addressing the service backlog and supporting expanded access. Digital service delivery is far more efficient, freeing up clinician time to deliver health care in-person for patients who are unable or unwilling to access services digitally or when virtual encounters are not the most appropriate channel. And digitization done well provides rich, real-time data to better understand gaps and inequities and thus improve digital services and inform timely program and policy development.”

Read more insights from Karen Hay, Digital Transformation Leader of Global Public Health at Salesforce.

What the Talent Shortage in Aerospace and Defense Companies is Really Telling Us

“Quick wins are essential. Quick wins are the battles in the bigger war of transforming your organization. These are the smaller localized wins within business units outside of large enterprise changes. They become easy-to-understand success stories that give teams a taste of how a transformed organization can thrive. They are powerful social proof that leaders can use to educate and inspire.”

Read more insights from Mike Mulcahy, Digital Transformation and Strategy Development Leader for Global Public-Sector Aerospace and Government System Integrators at Salesforce.

How Digitizing Infrastructure Protects Against a New Generation of Cyberattacks

“Chicago’s 311 call center is an excellent example of transformation in action. It is the point of entry for residents, business owners and visitors to access information about city programs, services and events. Chicago 311 allows citizens to access that information without long hold times and with minimal impact on staff. Since its launch, Chicago 311 has become an essential resource for activities as varied as simple informational inquiries and requests for tree trimming and pothole repairs. More broadly, the service has shown how the right cloud platform can transform the traditional call center into a modern contact center that unlocks everything from back-office information to self-service capabilities across a single, secure and connected experience.”

Read more insights from Paul Baltzell , Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for State and Local at Salesforce.

Empowering Citizens Through Platform Investments

“CIOs are facing the challenge of how to modernize by using platform technology. Most have moved into the cloud, but modernizing with a platform is a new way of thinking. It means deciding which platforms to adopt and which use cases to build onto these platforms. Modernization means reducing the technology stack. When agencies choose the right platform, they benefit from the use cases that are already on it so they don’t have to start from scratch.”

Read more insights from Scott Brock, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for State and Local at Salesforce.

How Technology Investments Can Help Close the Talent Gap

“A November 2022 memo from the Office of the Secretary of Defense confirmed the seriousness of the situation with respect to retention after return-to-work policies went into effect. Focusing on our nation’s cybersecurity priorities, the statement called for expanding the workforce through apprenticeship programs and other nontraditional means of closing the talent gap. There is a solution: with the right investment in technology and talent, leaders can manage through the current challenges and achieve a posture where positive change is a constant, iterative and accepted part of the landscape.”

Read more insights from Dr. Michael Parker, Vice President of Business Development at Salesforce.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from IT modernization thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

Why AppExchange Use Offers Agencies Untapped Opportunity

Posted on by Bethany Blackwell

In our first Insider’s Guide, we’re pulling back the curtain on the world’s largest cloud app marketplace, the Salesforce AppExchange, to offer a look at what it is, how it works and how it can provide value to agencies in extending their investment in the Salesforce platform. With the government’s increased focus on improving service delivery — particularly public-facing services per the presidential administration executive order on customer service — taking advantage of possible software-as-a-service integrations with the Salesforce customer relationship management platform makes logical sense. Download the guide to learn how AppExchange helps organizations increase productivity, eliminate risk and save time.

Nintex DocGen for Document Creation, Automation and Management

“A great example would be voter registration cards. Every year, you need to update it. We make it really easy to go out and maintain it with our solution and not have to go into code to make updates. It becomes easy to create, easy to maintain going forward and not having to spend budget on development cycles or development resources to build these solutions. The alternative is to write and maintain custom Apex code, which requires an advanced skill set and takes more time. This is a faster way to develop it and an easier way to maintain it.”

Read more insights from Steve Witt, Director of Public Sector at Nintex.

FormAssembly for Secure Online Forms

“Specifically, we’re the most secure and compliant platform in the entire marketplace. That is how we go to market, that’s what we pride ourselves on: being good stewards of our data, being thought leaders in that space. Government organizations should use us because, doubling down on the security and compliancy, we’re tailored for highly sensitive data. We’re built for that. We hold the distinction of being the only FedRAMP-ready platform on the marketplace in this category. We also hold SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and GDPR compliance. And really, what that means for our customers and partners is that we’re experts in this space, and that will mitigate any risk and collecting data for your organization, whether it’s here in the United States or abroad.”

Read more insights from Paul Lazatin, Director of Partnerships at FormAssembly.

WalkMe for No-Code Digital Adoption

“What makes us unique is that we have the ability to overlay on any enterprise application in the tech stack, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), government off-the-shelf (GOTS) or custom-built. By doing so, we’re able to create better user experiences, drive employee productivity and monitor digital adoption on any enterprise application that’s being deployed out to the federal government, whether those applications are internal to employees or externally facing for taxpayers and constituents.”

Read more insights from Carl Wright, Director of Public Sector of Federal Sales at WalkMe.

Odaseva for Enterprise Data Protection

“Many federal and state organizations have questions that need answers when it comes to managing their Salesforce data. How do Salesforce users archive data that is no longer needed? How do they comply with regulations such as those from the National Institute of Standards and Technology or in the California Consumer Privacy Act? That’s why we at Odaseva consider the data management lifecycle. Odaseva helps organizations comply with the strictest data regulations and guard against data failure — all with precise control on a field-tested platform to scale with ease. And we deliver this with the strongest data security features that exceed the requirements of even the most complex, highly regulated businesses in the world.”

Read more insights from Matt Carstensen, Senior Solutions Engineer at Odaseva.

Conga Apps for Contract and Workflow Management

“Conga offers a flexible platform and set of solutions built natively on top of Salesforce that address a broad set of needs for federal, state and local government entities. Our products include Composer, the number one downloaded application on Salesforce’s AppExchange. Conga Composer allows public sector customers to automate document generation to get work done faster and easier in Salesforce. Users can create documents with dynamic data from Salesforce in the correct template, then send it, store it and trigger the next business process. Conga Sign is a modern and highly secure e-signature solution. We now offer a FedRAMP-certified version of our e-signature solution, which is getting quite a bit of attention.”

Read more insights from Eric Daggett, Vice President of Sales for Public Sector at Conga.

Download the full Insider’s Guide for more insights from these AppExchange leaders and additional interviews, research and infographics.

How to Achieve your Agency’s Customer Experience Goals

Posted on by Tiffany Goddard

Customer experience pervades every aspect of what the government does — and some might argue, why it exists. What’s more, it has become profoundly clear that everyone is a customer. There are the obvious customers, people across the nation. But then there are current and former federal employees, businesses large and small, the government’s contracting community, other agencies and even other nations. Likely, there are more. Unlike a private company, a federal agency often has no competitor for its services. That fact has created a lag in the evolution of federal CX and digital services — relative to what businesses and nongovernment organizations typically provide today and what people now expect. Agencies are on it now though. The presidential executive order on customer experience of December 2021 targets the need to evolve CX and points up the destructive affect that poor service delivery has on public trust. Download the guide to learn how to meet the expectations of the public, as well as the many other customers agencies serve, with a multipronged strategy that focuses on culture, processes and technology.

Want to Enhance Customer Experience? Here’s Where to Start

“The key to the success of Farmers.gov is its simplicity, Bremby said. USDA has put all the information farmers need in a single place and made it easy for them to complete the necessary processes to receive services. USDA consolidated seven digital systems and 150 web resources into one intelligent platform that follows a user’s progress. And that, Bremby noted, is the biggest metric for success in customer experience: Did the customer complete the transaction? Or did they drop off somewhere in the middle of the process, like abandoning a cart while shopping online?”

Read more insights from Rod Bremby, Regional Vice President for Global Public Sector at Salesforce.

Meaningful Communication Creates the Foundation for Good Customer Experience

“Agencies are familiar with traditional communications media. They engage with public relations firms and the news media to promote stories. They conduct public awareness campaigns across every available platform, from bus stop advertisements to social media, and they tend to be pretty good at driving broad awareness. Where they fall short though, Peterson said, is more granular, personalized messaging.”

Read more insights from Angy Peterson, Vice President at Granicus.

How Federal Agencies can Pivot to Experience-driven Government

“People who rely on government services are usually accessing them at critical junctures in their lives, often moments of profound need. They’re looking for relief in the aftermath of a natural disaster, for public health data during an epidemic, for financial stability in retirement, and for ways to prepare for growth or cope with losses affecting their families and businesses. That’s why agencies need to pivot to experience-driven government, meeting citizens where they’re at in their journeys and connecting them with the right services at the right time.”

Read more insights from James Hanson, Head of Industry Strategy for the Public Sector at Adobe.

Don’t Let a Cyber Staff Shortage Weaken Your Defenses

“Federal agencies are taking note and have started making significant strides toward digital transformation, driven in no small part by recent directives, including the president’s executive order on customer experience. While competitive pressures often motivate private sector enterprises to invest in innovation, the government’s greatest competition is usually the status quo. Agencies have been delivering services in the same way for so long that impacting change requires redirecting institutional inertia — to say nothing of overcoming budgetary obstacles. One way for agencies to get started on this journey is to begin digitizing agreements.”

Read more insights from Michael “MJ” Jackson, Vice President and Global Head of Industries at DocuSign.

Here are 3 Phases to Begin Modernizing Customer Experience Right Away

“For years, agencies have been researching, modernizing and overhauling how customers experience doing business with the federal government. Over the course of several presidential administrations, with the help of Office of Management and Budget mandates, presidential executive orders and an influx of customer experience talent, there has been a noticeable shift toward organizational CX management approaches. Agencies have an opportunity to take full advantage of technological advances to improve customer experience management capacity at scale. Advances in cloud technology, data analytics and new communications channels have opened up new avenues to improve an agency’s capability to design and deliver services for both customers and federal employees.”

Read more insights from Matt Chong, Vice President of Federal at Qualtrics.

Download the full Expert Edition for more insights from these customer experience leaders and additional government interviews, historical perspectives and industry research.

Future-Proofing Digital Service Delivery

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, the government rushed to offer more digital services, and as the public health crisis stretched into a third year, agencies are relying on those services more than ever. Like their private-sector counterparts, they have come to recognize that digital service delivery is the key to solving a range of challenges. Digital services are not static. Instead, agencies must continuously introduce innovations and improvements based on customer needs.

Learn how your agency or municipality can continue to improve customer experience, including increasing employee retention and training, adding sustainability initiatives, and utilizing scalable technology, in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government® report.

Digital Transformation and the Power of a Platform

“In using traditional and legacy IT systems, governments dedicate significant amounts of time, money and expertise to select, build, integrate, test, scale and secure new technologies, often accumulating decades of technical debt. One clear lesson from the pandemic is that we need to find a new way to operate, and time and speed are of the essence. New technology helps introduce the speed, agility and digital services needed to operate in today’s world. The technology that was delivered during the pandemic saved lives and could not have been built on legacy technology. That’s why digital transformation and a powerful platform are paramount.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s President for the Global Public Sector, Dave Rey.

Reimagine Service Delivery with a Proactive Digital Strategy

“Customers expect timely services in flexible and convenient mediums. As a result, government IT systems need to be modified to meet customer expectations, where new features and capabilities are rolled out in days, not years. Creating an “agile first” policy can help the government update its policies and foundation to focus on modern IT. Governments should invest in cloud-based and low-code and no-code platforms that are secure and agile. The primary benefit for government agencies to leverage cloud solutions is the access to an ecosystem that is regularly updated and constantly evolving to meet changing demands.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Senior Vice President of Energy and Utilities, Nasi Jazayeri, and Digital Transformation Executive, Mia Jordan.

The Benefits of Treating Employees Like Customers

“Agencies can foster an eagerness for learning by encouraging employees to gain new skills and expertise that enable them to expand their career horizons, further the agency mission and benefit the end user. Employees can be provided with resources that enable them to understand different technologies and how they can be used to address business needs. Agencies can also provide time during the work week for employees to learn new software or get certified on new technologies and with the flexibility to attend conferences.”

From Salesforce’s Director of Digital Strategy for Global Public Sector, Tahera Zamanzada.

Investing in a Secure and Modern Platform

“By leveraging modern technologies, agencies can quickly deploy secure, customer-centric applications in weeks, instead of months or years. But to achieve this, they’ll need to prioritize IT modernization efforts that focus on their platform, integration and security. When government leaders select an IT platform, they are typically making a five- to 10-year commitment to that technology and the vendor behind it. Before making such a long commitment, government leaders should evaluate and understand the platform’s ecosystem.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Executive Vice President of Global Public Sector, Paul Tatum.

How Government Agencies Can Take on Sustainability

“Government agencies can work toward creating a sustainable future and accelerating their net-zero journeys by developing their own climate action plans. To start, leaders should bring together and listen to their stakeholders in an effort to gain a holistic understanding of the situation, its impacts and how to make changes that can have positive results. The next step should be to focus on reducing and their emissions. Agencies and their energy suppliers can achieve this by using renewable and cleaner energy sources.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Vice President for Federal Government Affairs, Hugh Gamble.

Responding Quickly to a Public Health Emergency

“To deliver services quickly in a pandemic, agencies should keep these key considerations top of mind. They can begin by assessing and understanding the governance and delivery structure around the type of implementation they’re trying to make and understand that rapid deployment cannot happen without having the right technical infrastructure in place. Agencies could leverage cloud-based, low- or no-code platforms rather than building something new. Cloud-based technology is scalable and can be configured for multiple use cases, making it easier to deliver services quickly while meeting the needs of a rapidly changing environment. It’s also important that agencies understand that customers want to be engaged in different ways and leverage technologies that provide omni-channel engagement.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Health and Human Services Industry Executive, Courtney Hawkins.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these digital service delivery thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

Maximizing the Benefits of MultiCloud

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

The government’s approach to cloud technology has changed dramatically in the years between the 2010 Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, known as Cloud First, and the 2019 Cloud Smart Strategy. The first policy pushed agencies to consider cloud technologies before others, while the second offers actionable advice on how to deploy the technology. Today, 81% of federal agencies use more than one cloud platform, according to a MeriTalk survey. Because of its inherent flexibility and scalability, cloud technology played a key role in agencies’ response to the pandemic and their ability to shift employees to remote work. Now government leaders recognize that multicloud environments are crucial for ensuring resiliency during a crisis. The Cloud Smart Strategy explicitly references hybrid and multicloud environments as essential tools for improving mission outcomes and service delivery. Despite the benefits of multicloud environments, they can present management challenges for many agencies, such as difficulty migrating mission-critical legacy apps to the cloud or ensuring the interoperability of products and services from multiple vendors. In a recent survey of FCW readers, security was the biggest challenge to managing a cloud ecosystem, cited by 74% of respondents. The Cloud Smart Strategy makes it clear that cloud technology has become indispensable to government agencies but adopting hybrid and multicloud requires thoughtfulness and planning; read the latest insights from industry thought leaders in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government^® report on multicloud.

Empowering the Government’s Earliest Adopters

“Multicloud environments offer agencies the opportunity to go beyond simply managing data to analyzing it for valuable insights and better decision-making. Cloud technology was created to deal with the exponential increase in data collection and the increasing demands for storage. In other words, cloud was developed to handle big-data challenges. Furthermore, cloud technology offers tremendous opportunities for agencies to off-load some monotonous day-to-day IT management tasks in favor of higher-level activities. If there are only a handful of people in an agency’s IT organization, they could spend all their time creating new storage clusters and provisioning that storage as data collection increases. If an agency can leverage the automation that comes with cloud to store and replicate data and then make sure that data is backed up and protected, the agency can enable those individuals to focus on true data analysis, data science and data discovery.”

Read more insights from Google’s Cloud Engineering Manager, Sean Maday.

Rethinking Legacy App Migration and Software Factories

“Many government agencies have started to build software factories to reduce security risks and greatly improve the innovation cycle. If not implemented well, however, they can increase security risks, especially when each program or project builds its own software factory. Instead of creating more software factories, agencies should move toward centralizing software build environments and rationalizing duplicative processes that can be used for both legacy and modern application development teams regardless of their development methodology. They should strive to standardize all tooling for agile/DevSecOps, create enterprise services that support development teams, and establish policies that monitor for insider threat and eliminate risks during software development.”

Read more insights from MFGS’s Public Sector CTO, David Wray, and CTO for Alliances and Partners, Kevin Hansen.

Developing a Long-Term Vision for MultiCloud

“A multicloud approach can be a double-edged sword, with benefits and risks. When agencies have access to a cloud environment, it’s easy for them to spin up new compute resources or storage solutions. But this flexibility opens up risks in terms of performance and security. Even when an agency is working with public cloud service providers, it’s the agency’s responsibility to make sure its resources are configured properly. Many data leakage incidents in the cloud are the result of a configuration issue. Furthermore, in a multicloud environment, technologies are created independently of one another and won’t always work well together. Agencies must make sure they have the appropriate visibility across multicloud environments and on-premises systems so they can understand and manage all aspects of their IT systems. This includes controlling costs and decommissioning purpose-built cloud resources when they are no longer needed.”

Read more insights from SolarWinds’s Group Vice President for Product, Brandon Shopp.

Taking a Fresh Look at Cloud’s Potential

“Agencies need to understand the business goals for a particular cloud-based application or workload and then make decisions about the best architectural approach. They also need a comprehensive security model that’s architecturally coherent from a deployment and operations perspective. The model should take into consideration the entire life cycle of applications as agencies modernize into the cloud. By combining the security and compliance aspects of modernization with a coherent IT architecture, agencies can drive down costs for managing those applications in the cloud. The cost savings can allow agencies to fund further modernization efforts or conduct research and development activities around core workloads or advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence.”

Read more insights from Microsoft Federal’s CTO, Jason Payne.

How Cloud Storage Enables Innovation

“In the early days, cloud storage was designed to be “cheap and deep” — a place to inexpensively store data without worrying about capacity. At the time, cloud could not compete with on-premises storage in terms of access speeds. Thanks to technological advances in the past several years, however, data is as quickly accessible and available in the cloud as it is via on-premises systems. As a result, the number of applications that are eligible for cloud storage has increased dramatically, and cloud has become a primary storage option for enterprises. Beyond backing up data, agencies can use live applications in the cloud for video surveillance or active archiving, for example.”

Read more insights from Wasabi Technologies’ Senior Director of Product Marketing, David Boland.

Raising MultiCloud Management to the Next Level

“Many agencies are using cloud the way they used non-cloud data centers 15 or 20 years ago. But instead of customizing their cloud environments, they should use tools like Terraform, Juju or Pulumi to create, deploy and manage infrastructure as code on any cloud and then enable automation and orchestration in their cloud platforms. In addition to using predetermined, software-defined configurations for cloud deployments, agencies should develop a more strategic approach to funding their multicloud environments. Agencies should also take a fresh look at their cloud funding models. Beyond the total cost of ownership, they need to reevaluate how they pay for cloud products and services. They can choose to treat that spending as a capital expenditure (CapEx), which typically has a higher cost of ownership, or as an operational expense (OpEx).”

Read more insights from Dell Technologies’ Cloud Technologist, Patrick Thomas.

The Elements of a Strong Cloud Portfolio

“Custom code is arguably the root cause of most IT challenges in government. For example, the Alliance for Digital Innovation, of which Salesforce is a member, released a study that found the federal government could have saved $345 billion over 25 years if it had embraced commercial technology rather than building systems from scratch. In order to improve customer service and reduce their dependency on custom solutions, agencies should implement a multicloud strategy that is not solely based on rehosting and refactoring applications on infrastructure solutions. Agencies need to make sure they adopt a mix of software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). And they should consider low-code options within the SaaS and PaaS categories to limit their reliance on custom solutions.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Regional Vice President, Public-Sector Digital Strategy, Christopher Radich.

A Framework for Gleaning MultiCloud Insights

“By constantly monitoring compliance, agencies ensure that the cloud environment is safe and productive. In other words, their data is protected and their employees have the ability to use that data to perform their jobs and achieve mission goals. In addition, monitoring compliance and resource optimization is the key to ensuring uptime and appropriate capacity, as well as answering questions about costs. Agencies need to understand how they’re running and operating cloud applications and then make sure they’re applying the right framework for managing security policies. Furthermore, flexibility and efficiency are central benefits of a multicloud environment. Moving on-premises software into such an environment typically requires a complete re-architecting of those applications.”

Read more insights from SAP National Security Services’s CSO, Brian Paget.

Optimizing Cloud Investments with a Digital Twin

“In most agencies, it’s impossible for any person to get an understanding of all traffic flows and behavior. Agencies need access to normalized data presented in easy-to-consume visuals to ensure compliance, reduce outages and prevent incidents. Similarly, multicloud environments incorporate a wide variety of services and products, and it is essential to have a unified view that links what’s in the cloud (or clouds) and what’s on premises. A digital twin can supply that single source of truth and ensure that applications are readable across clouds and on-premises systems and that the network’s security posture is not being invalidated. And just as robust GPS apps will find the most efficient path, a digital twin knows all the possibilities and can answer agencies’ questions about the most efficient, secure and cost-effective way to route cloud activities.”

Read more insights from Forward Networks’s Technical Solutions Architect, Scot Wilson.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these government multicloud thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

Digitally Transforming the Customer Experience

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

The federal government first sharpened its focus on efforts to digitally transform customer experience (CX) beginning in 2018, when enhancing CX became a cross-agency priority goal and the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) was signed into law. That’s also the year that 100% of public-sector respondents to an IDC survey said digitally transforming their organizations was a top priority. Then COVID-19 struck and reinforced the vital role that digital services play in ensuring the health and well-being of our country and the continuity of business and daily life. People turned in droves to websites, contact centers and other digital resources, often overwhelming agencies that were technologically unprepared for such an influx. Agencies need to enhance their understanding of customers so they can make better decisions about delivering services and providing important information. Agencies must also be able to build digital services quickly without compromising quality or security. And because engaged employees are essential to the delivery of government services, agencies must make sure employees have the technology and support they need to do their jobs. Read the latest insights from industry thought leaders in emerging technology in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government^® report.

Customer Experience is a Team Sport

“Many requests for government services start with a form, which can be a frustrating touchpoint. That’s why improving forms is an essential component of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. Americans can save time and avoid frustration when they easily enter data into a mobile-friendly digital form on any device, sign it electronically and submit it securely. Digital forms also save time and effort for government employees, and they limit the opportunity for data entry errors, which further strain government resources and lead to an unsatisfactory experience for employees and citizens. Improving CX is becoming a top priority for many government agencies. Rallying the organization behind the goals and enabling employees at each touchpoint in the customer’s journey can lead to positive outcomes that everyone can be proud of. Helping everyone understand who their customers are, the major tasks they want to complete and the pain points in each customer journey is critical to any CX strategy. It can be helpful to have an agency senior leader, such as a chief customer officer, oversee all of the CX initiatives and bring the customer perspective to all conversations to drive the strategy agency-wide.”

Read more insights from Adobe’s Technical Director of Government Solutions, Jonathan Benett.

Optimizing the User Experience at the Edge

“Modernization efforts lead to improved security. Legacy systems are becoming increasingly harder to secure, particularly if they’re on physical infrastructure. The 21st Century IDEA advocates using a flexible cloud infrastructure to make it easier to improve the user experience on any device while enhancing security. As agencies seek to offer better digital services, many of them turn to responsive design engines to send websites to mobile devices. However, the time it takes for those engines to analyze and assemble a unique response to specific devices slows down the user experience, leaving citizens frustrated and unable to complete necessary tasks. What if the distance between the user and the data could be lessened? Enter the Akamai Edge. Akamai executes business logic and security policies at the edge to improve performance without compromising security. We can also put capacity rules in place at the edge to distribute the load and keep a distributed denial-of-service attack or sudden rise in traffic from affecting a website’s performance.”

Read more insights from Akamai’s Senior Solutions Engineer, Micah Maryn.

Amplifying the Power of the Customer’s Voice

“When government agencies went remote, offices stayed open virtually and services (mostly) remained available. And while those areas where government needs more digitalization (such as unemployment systems) were made even more apparent, the trains kept moving. So what is next? Government can respond by doing something it has done more of in recent years — listen. As the power of the customer’s voice reaches government, agencies that are savvy listeners and can integrate customer feedback into their service improvement plans will set the leadership tone for a responsive and digital government. Lawmakers are embracing the need for digital government. The central components of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act — modernizing websites, digitizing services and forms, accelerating the use of e-signatures, improving the customer experience, and transitioning to shared services — apply to all levels of government. Agencies understand the value of those changes, and the experience of the pandemic has given them even more incentive to make those changes.”

Read more insights from Granicus’s Vice President for Business Development, Patrick Moore.

How to Build a More User-Focused Website

“After the 21st Century IDEA was signed into law, the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services published the U.S. Web Design System. This offers guidance and technology that agencies can use to create websites that are IDEA-compliant. Liferay applied the principles of the U.S. Web Design System to our platform to further streamline agencies’ ability to create websites that achieve the goals of the act. Liferay is particularly focused on facilitating action-oriented, self-service interactions. Our analytics component allows agencies to create audience segments so they can personalize the experience of website visitors based on why they use the site and what’s important to them. We also offer a more robust cloud-based analytics offering and the ability to test different versions of content to find the best way to reach the target audience. With Liferay, agencies can meet IDEA’s searchability requirement with a best-in-class capability right out of the box.”

Read more insights from Liferay’s Director of Federal, Kale Fluharty.

Government Unifies the Citizen Experience, Goes Digital

“Agencies should start thinking about creating a unified engagement layer that can house everything they know about a customer and that customer’s journey over time to ensure a positive, productive experience. That engagement layer also makes it possible for agencies to modernize back-office activities and seamlessly improve the customer experience. Thanks to the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, government agencies have been modernizing websites and digitizing forms. But those websites and forms are still disconnected from the data and still fail to address the customer life cycle. Furthermore, agencies must also embrace the other elements of the act, including adopting e-signatures, improving the customer experience and moving to shared services. Citizens, businesses and other government partners need a single front door — a place where they can engage regardless of where they are in their particular interaction. That front door service should include everything they have done and everything they could do regardless of which agency, office, department or person is handling the interaction on the government side.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Senior Director of Digital Transformation, Global Public Sector, Thomas Saracene.

The Next Evolution in Contact Centers

“Digitally transforming the contact center would enable agencies to leverage technology for speed and efficiency. Imagine a scenario in which a person can call the local unemployment office and talk to a “virtual agent” (or voice bot) to receive an update on their unemployment benefits, identify gaps in submissions or self-report required activity. Not only does this create a better citizen experience, it also deflects the call from a live agent, reducing strain on the contact center and allowing agents to focus on more complicated citizen requests. At Talkdesk, our goal is to automate 80% of customer interactions in the next three years. This means 80% of interactions will either be fully automated or conducted via an automated process that improves agent efficiency. The ability to scale up to handle a sudden workload influx while enabling work location flexibility will continue to be a concern. Moving systems and processes into the cloud is a foundational step on the road to digital transformation, and new deployment methods enable agencies to keep existing call-routing structures while adding cloud capabilities.”

Read more insights from Talkdesk’s Vice President of Regulated Industries, James Ward.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these government customer experience thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

Technology’s Role in Hire-to-Retire in Government

Posted on by Greg Brundidge

Human capital is the most important resource for any enterprise. However, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2020 that 60% of newly hired government employees only remained for two years. Such a talent drain forces government agencies to consume resources on constantly recruiting and training new personnel.

Agencies are routinely looking for ways to retain talented individuals and provide meaningful career paths, while cutting operational waste and redundancy. Employee lifecycle tools in end-to-end, hire-to-retire (H2R) integrated human resources processes are designed to streamline human resources employment and improve the retention of skilled employees. This provides enormous benefits to both agency management and employees.

Digital Transformation

The government doesn’t always make effective use of its employee data and require more efficient ways to access, query, and visualize the information. Across the government, agency leaders and HR teams are leveraging digital transformation to improve the H2R lifecycle.

Innovative programs use automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, omnichannel engagement, and other capabilities to create a 360-degree view of every employee. This allows HR leaders to provide systems that deliver an improved customer experience—offering tailored, personalized options from the start of an individual’s career, through their training, development, and career progression to the time they retire. The personalized employee experience includes an intuitive, single sign-on from anywhere capability and processes can be streamlined with mobile self-service capabilities.

The HR team can build solutions with helpful apps—from helpdesks to time and attendance–enabling employees to be more engaged. The right blend of people and technology can be a huge boon to employee effectiveness, productivity, and retention. Using a digital transformation plan to digitize form completion and other individual manual processes, agencies save money and free up employees for higher priority work.

Talent Recruitment

Technology can be invaluable when recruiting new employees. AI solutions provide a more collaborative and effective recruiting experience by automating processes with real-time tracking HR offices can deliver the right content to the candidate at the right stage of the hiring process. Information can be automatically sent to specific candidates with an appropriate cadence that makes them feel wanted. With AI managing applications and qualifications, hiring is easier for everyone.

Onboarding

The right technologies help agencies streamline mandated in-processing forms, individual benefit programs, and personnel record management. Less manual labor and faster processing means employees can start working sooner. Technology gives new hires a smoother experience—from offer acceptance through the training and mission orientation activities in the first year of employment. New employee training and orientation can be integrated into one standardized platform, so managers can track each employee’s progress in real-time. This makes the employee’s onboarding experience more positive and increases agency efficiency.

Workforce Planning

Leaders can use platforms to visualize data, equipping them to make data-driven decisions and draw insights from trends. Greater visibility into the available talent pool allows supervisors to use personnel resources effectively. They can evaluate mission needs, discover workforce talent gaps, and formulate appropriate recruiting efforts.

Employee Development

Providing timely and effective training and education helps improve employee retention. By the time an employee is completely onboarded, agencies have a lot of information about them, including training needs, special skills, and preliminary career development goals. With that data, the right digital transformation solution can help employees identify where they want to go next and which skills they will need.

With these tools, education and training can be tailored for each individual’s career goals. Automated systems can alert people to relevant opportunities and give access to training without requiring employees to fill out forms or talk to HR staff. With information at their fingertips for both employees and managers, the agency community remains connected.

Personalization

Many legacy HR systems are impersonal and one-size-fits-all. Systems that allow for personalization increase engagement by doing something very simple: making employees feel valued, noticed, and cared for. AI and machine learning capabilities allow computers to be more interactive with employees so they can pinpoint relevant data and offer very specific opportunities.

Setting Goals

Managers often struggle to set mission goals and then translate them into workforce tasks. With a comprehensive digital transformation solution, management can set specific mission goals and measurements and link them to performance objectives for individual employees. Because all the information is managed on a single, holistic platform, managers can link mission goals to an individual’s desire for a specific kind of assignment or training. With a 360-degree view of an employee, supervisors can also set performance goals with employees and then check progress and provide feedback quarterly or semiannually, helping both the employees and the agencies realize their long-term goals.

View our webinar to learn more about how government and industry thought leaders are using Hire to Retire.

Federal News Network Expert Edition: FedRAMP

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

When the Office of Management and Budget first conceived the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) back in 2010 and launched it in 2011, the concept was supposed to make it easier for agencies to move to secure cloud instances. Unfortunately for agencies and vendors alike, turning that proposal into reality has been more difficult than imagined. At the same time, the FedRAMP program management office saw and heard—sometimes quite loudly—the calls to simplify its processes without losing any security rigor. That’s why FedRAMP issued a white paper in February asking for feedback on the threat-scoring methodology with the goal of ensuring that consistency and rigor while continually reducing the burden of FedRAMP. Brian Conrad, the acting director of FedRAMP, said the latest set of initiatives strive to continually improve the government-wide program. Hear from leaders at FedRAMP, CISA, NIST, GSA, DoD and DHS on how changes such as automation and simplification are likely to impact the cloud security program in the latest Federal News Network Expert Edition report.

For Digital Communications, Cloud Meets Agency Needs for Security, Scalability

“Much has been made of the government’s pivot to a mostly telework environment last year, especially with regards to how to enable government employees to maintain their mission and collaborate effectively. But less attention has been paid to the equally important subject of how agencies interact with their constituents, across agencies and out to businesses and consumers. The journey to providing digital services has been happening for years, but much like telework, the COVID pandemic acted as an accelerator to these efforts. Agencies have multiple ways of communicating with their constituents, each with their own specific requirements. For example, agencies that publish information for public consumption need to be able to host this information on their websites, and it has to be available to and consumable from a myriad of devices to suit the needs of the public. Likewise for email newsletters, where people can sign up to hear the latest information an agency has to offer. But those are one way communication channels, agency to public. Communication also has to move the other way, to allow constituents to get in touch with agencies.”

Read more insights from Adobe’s Vice President and Public Sector CTO, John Landwehr.

How Government can Innovate at the Speed of the Private Sector

“Governments have unique security needs for a reason. No other entity has such diverse, unique missions or collects such a huge volume of data – such as scientific, medical, tax, Social Security, defense and classified intelligence. But the idea that these security needs can prevent government agencies from innovating at the speed of the private sector is a myth. Think for a moment about all of the varied ways that data collected by federal agencies can be used. Take a very simple example: GPS location data. While most people think of that data in terms of being able to use their smartphone to find the best path from point A to point B, governments may use it for a variety of missions. But Salesforce has also used that data to develop maps that allow agencies to track the locations of wildfires and the deployment of first responders, helping those agencies protect lives and prevent property damage.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Principal Solutions Engineer, Matt Goodrich.

Social Media is Increasingly Important to Federal Agencies. Here’s How They Can Do it Right.

“The COVID-19 pandemic forced massive changes in the way the government does business. In the beginning, all efforts were focused on enabling a primarily telework environment for federal employees, and securing that environment from outside threats. But after a year, those changes are spreading into other areas of business, forcing federal agencies to continue to adapt. Not least among those new challenges is the way agencies communicate with their constituents Many traditional brick and mortar locations are closed, shutting off that avenue for citizens to contact their government. In response, federal agencies are turning to digital communication methods to fill the gap. Websites and portals are one way citizens can find information published by agencies or access services. But the average American now spends two hours a day on social media, and federal agencies have to go where their citizens are. That means developing a strategy for communications, including new workflows and measures to ensure their security.”

Read more insights from Hootsuite’s Global Principal Solutions Consultant, Ben Cathers.

Agencies Need Better Data Intelligence – FedRAMP is Giving Them the Opportunity

“One of the biggest challenges agencies have to deal with when it comes to securing their data is their budget. Even if Congress were to increase funding for cybersecurity, that budget still has to be spent in the most efficient and effective way possible. That means agencies need to know their data inside and out: what it is, where it is, and what degree of security is appropriate to ensure its integrity and confidentiality. That’s important, because bad actors are targeting the data itself. They don’t care what infrastructure or platform it’s sitting on. They just want to exploit the data. That means agencies need a governance model. ‘Agencies are using many different types of technologies and varied database sources. And they’re operating very heterogeneous environments. They need technology that allows them to connect into all of those various data sources, and identify and understand what data exists in those locations,’ said Mike Lyons, chief information security officer at Collibra, a leading Data Intelligence software vendor. ‘Government agencies should be looking at cloud-based technologies for the purposes of securing their information, understanding their information, and frankly, trusting it.’”

Read more insights from Collibra’s Chief Information Security Officer, Myke Lyons.

Okta Can Be the Zero Trust Broker for Cloud Services

“When most people think about IT modernization, what they’re really thinking about is adopting cloud services. That’s true both for the innovation side of things and on the security side. The National Security Agency and other agencies heavily involved in cybersecurity recommend going to zero trust for modernizing identity and access management, and using cloud services to do so. That’s especially important in today’s environment, where workforces have been operating at maximum telework for almost a year. Most agencies’ network boundaries are no longer in their office buildings where they have total control, but are now in people’s homes. ‘A good friend of mine talked about this in the beginning of the lockdown. He basically said my agency went from 100 branch offices to 10,000 branch offices,’ said Sean Frazier, federal chief information security officer at Okta. ‘That’s exactly the mindset you have to take, which is now all of a sudden, I’m managing endpoints further out than I thought I was managing it. And zero trust is really the perfect security architecture for that use case.’”

Read more insights from Okta’s Federal Chief Security Officer, Sean Frazier.

Download the full Federal News Network Expert Edition report for more insights on the future of FedRAMP from Carahsoft’s technology partners and leaders at FEDRAMP, CISA, NIST, GSA, DoD and DHS.

Developing a Customer-First Mindset

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

Agencies at the Federal, state and local levels have been engaged in efforts to make their activities more customer-focused for years. Progress has been rapid for some, but others have been slow to allocate resources to the work involved in understanding the customer experience (CX) and invest in the technology and processes to improve it. However, the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic downturn have been a wake-up call to agencies that they can no longer afford to delay their CX initiatives, particularly the move to digital services. The agencies that pivoted most quickly to support teleworkers and expand digital services for citizens were those that were already heavily committed to IT modernization. For example, state agencies across the country turned to chatbots to help them answer questions about unemployment benefits and pandemic-related assistance. By investing in IT modernization and digital services, agencies can build trust in government services and sharpen their customer-first focus. Read the latest insights from industry thought leaders in customer experience in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government^® report.

Fostering Employee Development in Times of Change

“Agency leaders will also need to adapt to this changing work environment by embracing new ways of thinking. They should begin by recognizing that the workplace will continue to evolve and that technology will continue to play a part in the way we work. By investing in technology, creating pathways for employees to learn new skills and highlighting career growth opportunities, government can broaden its mission impact and appeal to the best and brightest job candidates. And it can boost its efforts to engage younger workers, who have demonstrated an interest in values-driven, purpose-based work and the sort of sustainable careers that government can offer.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Chief Marketing Officer, Sarah Franklin.

Connected Technology Equals Better Service

“As consumers, we use technology in virtually every aspect of our lives, and when we use government services, we expect the same user-friendly platform and connected experience. Those customer expectations are driving agencies to transform the way they deliver services digitally. Whether agencies are rolling out a mass vaccination program or setting up contact centers, it’s important they drive change with the constituent experience in mind and align their mission with cultural, political and social change. The benefits of digital transformation go beyond the citizen experience and also impact agency employees. By investing in a unified cloud-based platform model, agencies can simplify complex processes and empower employees to complete their jobs using one platform.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Regional Vice President of Strategy, Kristen Sanders, and Vice President of Solution Engineering, Jennifer Ward.

Reimagining Public Health Services

“During the response to COVID-19, we overcame many of the technical limitations that used to slow down innovation. One case in point: Vaccines have typically taken four to seven years to come to market, but researchers and manufacturers have developed effective coronavirus vaccines within 10 months of the start of the pandemic. Health and human services agencies should engage with other government agencies and the American Public Human Services Association, the American Public Health Association and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials to explore possible opportunities. The greatest failure we face is a failure of imagination. It’s time to think beyond where we are today and reach for what’s possible.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Industry Executive for Health and Human Services in the Global Public Sector, Rod Bremby.

A Digital-First Approach to CX

“Ideally, agencies and citizens have a streamlined, productive conversation online. It starts with considering the art of the possible and asking how an agency can achieve the same ease of use and digital-first approach that people experience with private-sector organizations. Agencies should ask themselves what problem they’re trying to solve and then put themselves in their beneficiary’s shoes. It’s also helpful to ask frontline employees, who are speaking to citizens every day, what changes would make it easier for them to achieve their tasks faster and more efficiently. That might involve breaking down barriers between offices or agencies so that citizens and employees can have a seamless experience, or leveraging chatbots for simple, high-volume requests online.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist, Tiffani Bova.

New Cloud Security Considerations for Government

“Zero trust is not a single product or service. Previously, organizations deployed a perimeter-based approach to security, treating the organization’s network as a trusted zone and placing security defenses at the edges. A zero trust approach never assumes that an organization is safe and sound within its own “secure” corporate network; rather, it places control around the data assets themselves. The purpose is to create a framework in which a person seeking information is authenticated every step of the way, data is isolated and protected, and administrators have the ability to audit who’s been where and done what. The principles are similar to the process you would go through to board a plane. Someone validates your identity when you get your ticket, check your bags, pass through the security checkpoint and right before you are allowed to walk onto the plane.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Vice President of Public Sector Security, Mike Rosa, and Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Alicia Rosenbaum.

Transforming Talent Management at DOD

“The Defense Department faces a number of challenges when it comes to managing the careers of active-duty service members and civilian employees. For one thing, the young people coming out of high school and college are digital-natives. They understand how technology should work and have high expectations for the capabilities they want at their fingertips. They also have high expectations for career growth. To meet their needs, managers must show a clear path for training and opportunities so employees and service members can continue to develop, while also providing them a platform to monitor their personnel records and track career progression. Unfortunately, the DOD systems that support talent recruitment, development and evaluation processes evolved in their own silos. However, with technological evolvement, we now have the ability to integrate all that information and transform the experience for employees and their managers by providing a unified platform.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Vice President, Greg Brundidge.

Collaborative AI for Knowledge Discovery

“Letting user actions retrain a machine learning model is not new. For example, recommender engines have been telling us what else to put in our online shopping carts for 20 years. That ‘wisdom of the crowds’ relies on many people repeating a task for nearly the same objective. Crowd-based approaches often don’t work for government users who are doing high-value, knowledge-based tasks. For example, a key document might not have been opened by a single person — let alone a ‘crowd’ — in years. Furthermore, the government is often the only entity that can perform particular activities, such as approving licensing and permitting applications and conducting law enforcement. Therefore, government activities often require deep research and digging through huge amounts of unstructured data, which consumes vast amounts of personnel resources and time.”

Read more insights from Salesforce’s Vice President of Collaborate AI for Industries, John R. Frank.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these government customer experience thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.