New WashingtonExec Series:
WashingtonExec reached out to executives in the community for their insights on issues concerning the mobile industry. Can mobility remain cost effective while being efficient, and how does it reduce cost for federal government clients?
Our eight participant is Raj Shah, head of Global Security and Critical Infrastructure division at Sapient.
Raj Shah:
1.) Mobility is pushing the data and decision making process closer to where (and when) decisions need to be made. By enabling workers in the field to have access to the tools and information they need, efficiency is increased while costly delays are reduced. From scientists from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the field with access to medical information, to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster recovery employees with access to assistance and grant applications, mobility means that decisions can be made quicker, by the right people, and with the right information.
2.) Mobility extends beyond the workforce. Enabling customers to do business with the government when they want to, and in some cases, how they want to, is a paradigm shift for the government. By enabling a customer-centric service model, with mobility at its core, BOTH internal and external constituencies will see improvement in satisfaction, cost, and efficiency.
3.) The next generations of the federal workforce (Generation Y and Generation I) expect mobility to be embedded in how they work. While some of today’s managers remain skeptical about how efficient “unsupervised” employees can be, finding and retaining talented employees remains a critical challenge. OPM’s FY2010 (latest data available) report shows an average time to hire of 105 days. While the government does not lose revenue because of unfilled positions, the cost of hiring a replacement plus the uncompleted workload of the position should create the case for managers to do everything they can to hold on to talented employees.
Read Raj Shah’s interview with WashingtonExec about the global impact of mobile technology here.
