Cloud Horizons: Preparing Local Government for the Digital Age

By: RPI Tech Connect   July 30, 2024

There’s been a critical shift in local government to embrace cloud technology. But the change in mindset didn’t happen overnight. In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Infor’s Senior Director, Public Sector Strategist Robert St. Ledger, and Director of Public Sector Planning Bob Benstead discuss the happenings of city and county governments, the imperative to prioritize community needs, and the reasons behind the move to modern cloud infrastructure.

Listen in to discover the benefits of cloud technology, from improved security and resource efficiency to the ability to attract and retain younger workforces. Plus, find out how Infor is at the forefront of delivering value through ERP solutions tailored for the public sector. Hear real-world examples of successful cloud transitions, and gain valuable advice on securing executive sponsorship and setting realistic goals for your own digital transformation.

Whether your migration to the cloud is years away or you’re currently in the system selection process, this episode offers insights on the future of local government operations and may influence how you go about your system transition.

Interested in listening to this episode on another streaming platform? Check out our directories.

Meet Today’s Guest, Robert St. Ledger

Robert St. Ledger is Senior Strategy Director for Infor Public Sector focusing on designing and enabling secure, multi tenant cloud-first solutions across states, cities, counties, tribal nations, K-12 districts, water utilities, transportation and federal agencies. Robert has worked for a number of large and small business application and technology firms including Oracle, EDS, International Telesystems Corporation, EIS International, and Versatility.

Over the course of his twenty-five years in the technology industry, Robert has held a variety of roles in product management and development; solution marketing; and program management.

Meet Today’s Guest, Bob Benstead

Bob Benstead is the Director of Strategic Public Sector Planning at Infor, where he has served for nearly 18 years. Before his tenure at Infor, Bob was a Director at Hansen Information Technologies.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. With his extensive experience and scientific background, Bob plays a pivotal role in shaping strategic initiatives that enhance public sector operations and services.

Meet Your Host, Chris Arey

Chris Arey is an experienced B2B marketing professional with nearly a decade of working in content creation, copywriting, SEO, website architecture, corporate branding, and social media. Beginning his career as an analyst before making a lateral move into marketing, he combines analytical thinking with creative flair—two fundamental principles required in marketing.

With a Bachelor’s degree in English and certifications from the Digital Marketing Institute and HubSpot, Chris has spearheaded impactful content marketing initiatives, participated in corporate re-branding efforts, and collaborated with celebrity influencers. He has also worked with award-winning PR professionals to create unique, compelling campaigns that drove brand recognition and revenue growth for his previous employers.

Chris’ versatility is highlighted by his experience working across different industries, including HR, Tech, SaaS, and Consulting.

About RPI Tech Connect

RPI Tech Connect is the go-to podcast for catching up on the dynamic world of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Join us as we discuss the future of ERPs, covering everything from best practices and organizational change to seamless cloud migration and optimizing applications. Plus, we’ll share predictions and insights of what to expect in the future world of ERPs.

RPI Tech Connect delivers relevant, valuable information in a digestible format. Through candid, genuine conversations and stories from the world of consulting, we aim to provide actionable steps to help you elevate your organization’s ERP. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the ERP scene, our podcast ensures you’re well-equipped for success.

Tune in as we explore tips and tricks in the field of ERP consulting each week and subscribe to RPI Tech Connect below.

Transcript

Chris Arey (00:01)
The push for local government to move to the cloud has never been greater than it is right now. But it didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it’s been years in the making. Stick around as we explore the motives for driving governments to cloud technology. Plus, find out what actions municipalities can take today to get started.

Chris Arey (00:05)
This is RPI Tech Connect, and I’m your host, Chris Arey. Thanks for tuning in. On today’s segment, we’re taking a closer look at the drivers behind pushing local government to cloud software. To help set the stage, we have not one, but two guests from Infor joining us. Senior Director, Public Sector Strategist, Bob St. Ledger, and Vice President of Public Sector Planning, Bob Benstead. Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob St. Ledger (00:35)
Good to be here.

Bob Benstead (00:36)
Thanks.

Chris Arey (00:38)
Happy to have you both on the program today. Before we jump in, I’m hoping you guys could share a little bit about your experience in the public sector. You have some pretty impressive titles, so I’m sure there’s a story to share there. Robert, would you like to go first?

Bob St. Ledger (00:54)
Sure. Yeah, thanks for your time today, Chris. I enjoy working at Infor. I’ve been in for about 10 years. Prior to that, I worked for a series of other software vendors. I’ve been a vendor in this community for a long time, spent a long time providing solutions to public sector organizations. So again, welcome to my fellow Bob. I’ll let him introduce himself.

Bob Benstead (01:15)
Thank you. Bob Benstead. I’ve actually been in the public sector business for almost 26 years now. Started out with a company that actually addressed a lot of the field operations and regulatory things and utilities, things like that.

But it’s been a very dynamic 26 years seeing the changes in technology, attitudes, funding, all the things go along with that. So I look forward to today’s conversation.

Chris Arey (01:44)
Awesome, well thank you both for sharing your background with me there and I appreciate your time this afternoon. Since you two are the wizards of city and county government, I’m hoping you can explain what’s been happening throughout the industry. And I want to specify that for this segment, we’re going to be focusing predominantly on local, city, and state government. Bob, you want to kick us off

Bob Benstead (02:06)
Sure, you know, there’s been some dynamic changes. Prior to COVID, you did have a lot of activity where there was added responsibility for local jurisdictions and state jurisdictions to be answerable to their constituents. It was a slow moving process.

There was various sprints in adoption and changes of policies to allow that. But what the big thing was is COVID that forced an enormous amount of on these jurisdictions and these government agencies to be able to respond much quicker to their clientele, have information, provide transparency, all those things that needed to be imparted upon the public because it was a critical time. So it changed the game.

And what it did do is allow a much faster adoption by these agencies of new technology that would support this instead two and three and four year cycles of procurement, deployment, what have you, they were forced to have really quick turning solutions in place to help augment their communications and service delivery. And one other factor, keep in mind during COVID, the ability for government to just deliver services was hugely impacted. People couldn’t come into the office. People had very limited remote capabilities in some cases.

So, all of that generated this enormous, I guess, adoption of quicker, faster, leaner, but more direct transparency with their agencies. And now we’re benefiting from that. You know, they know that they can pick and choose and deploy systems much quicker. They know they need to have protocols to be transparent and to provide timely information.

And then on top of that, you have a very astute citizenry that is actually has higher expectations. This is a new generation. They’re used to ordering things off of Amazon, looking at their phone for information, doing that type of thing. Therefore, that has also forced government agencies to react to that and to be able to feed that and to be able to provide information. So huge fundamental changes, but I truly think we’re benefiting from that unfortunate crisis and it’s allowing much more interaction

Chris Arey (04:25)
Hmm. Yeah, everyone wants more faster, quicker, sooner. Like it’s just everything within your fingertips. Is that right?

Bob St. Ledger (04:37)
I would say that’s certainly a part of it. So if you can even think of a good coming out of COVID, it is the fact that now citizens, as Bob said, are demanding that they get their services yesterday. They don’t want to wait till a year from now. They want it faster. And the public sector, which has generally been a laggard in terms of adopting technology, is now really at the forefront of adopting capabilities to make sure their citizens have access.

They do have transparency. They do have lot of capabilities previously didn’t have access to or didn’t have knowledge of. So again, a lot has changed over the last two years since COVID has hit, and we are working with many organizations to move their platforms to the

Chris Arey (05:19)
Of course, that makes sense. so I feel like I know the answer to this, but the reasons that they want to move to cloud technology, seems like it’s able to help governments provide what their constituents are looking for quicker. But maybe you could elaborate more on what else cloud technology has to offer.

Robert, we can start with you.

Bob St. Ledger (05:46)
Yep, I appreciate that. Yeah, so I think for the most part, city counties, other organizations are working with their constituents and their citizenry to understand what it is they need and what they want access to. So a big part of it is wanting to be online, never in line again. They want to be able to see through a transparent lens what’s going on with their government. So how are they spending their citizens’ money and fees?

A lot of the organizations who are dealing with systems, old legacy on -premise systems that have issues with security, issues with resources because nobody knows how to run these systems anymore, they’ve retired. They’ve been looking for ways to take advantage of new technologies like artificial intelligence, generative AI, hyper automation or enterprise automation, other ways that legacy platforms cannot support.

And again, there’s also, I mentioned cybersecurity is also real concerned about having issues with breaches, data access, challenges, etc. So again, the cloud offers a lot of security, a lot of transparency, a lot of access to new technologies that are not available with systems that in some cases are 20, 30, 40 years

Chris Arey (07:01)
Yeah, that makes sense. We’re in 2024 now and AI is all the rage. So I’m not surprised to hear that local government is looking for ways to kind of capitalize on that and deliver more value sooner to their communities.

I’m wondering now, so hearing a little bit about the benefits of modern technology, cloud technology that is, if you could maybe share some stories of organizations who have gone through this journey and are now on the other side of it and it’s enhanced their operations and the way they deliver to their constituents.

I’ll leave that one up to either of you.

Bob St. Ledger (07:43)
Yeah, I’ll just start, Bob, please add some additional examples. yeah, between Bob and I, we deal with a lot of organizations who have gone to the cloud and are now realizing a lot of the benefits that we talking about just a few moments ago. But a couple of examples, like we have one customer in a county in Maryland who just before COVID was moving everything online.

And once they got online, they were able to stay open during the whole COVID shutdown phases where a lot of the organizations and governments around their area, other counties, close jurisdiction were in fact shuttered. So again, immediately folks who were able to adopt online technologies were able to keep their doors open. But another client who has gone from a long time on -premise, exists another one of our clients who has been on -premise for a long time now in the cloud. And they’re just able to retire a lot of their other platforms that they couldn’t manage anymore.

They also have capabilities that allow standard business processes so that they’re able to get everyone across their city on the same platform and following the same processes and really streamlining what it is they were doing. Another client of ours was really looking for some kind of a solution that would be cloud -based but user -centered.

And so it was a fast -growing, smaller community, but they really wanted to be able to move everything to the cloud, get rid of spreadsheets, get rid of confusion over what the right process is, looking at a more prescriptive approach on how we can really adopt solutions and technologies and processes to meet their need.

Chris Arey (09:21)
Awesome. Thanks for sharing that with us, Robert. Bob, anything you want to add there about some…

Bob Benstead (09:26)
I do. Interesting enough, Bob gave an example of one of our major clients on the East Coast. One of the things that they did do, and this is during the height of COVID, when they had various grants and funding and financial assistance, they still didn’t have a mechanism for local businesses to apply for such.

So they took what in essence was our self -service portal and adapted that for grant applications and the ability to fast track and evaluate the funding and provision of these grants to the applicants. So they actually took the technology that had no preface and no precedence before and then put it in and were able to roll that out in very short order.

And as Bob alluded to, interesting story, the governor did a poll of all the departments in the state and these guys were one of two that were remaining open for business and additionally, taking care of some of the grant applications and things above and beyond their normal mission. So that’s a perfect example of being able to take that.

And now they’re actually expanding the system along those same lines into all kinds of self -service, all kinds of other avenues to improve their processes, but more importantly, engage their citizenry, allow them to do their business queries, all that type of stuff.

There’s another example too that they had some very severe resource limits. It was a mid -sized county here in the West. And what they’ve done is they’ve been able to move all of that solutioning and work to a cloud environment, our multi -tenant. But what they’ve been able to do is free up like a dozen resources that were formerly in administration of core systems, network.

database, all that stuff. Well, they’ve taken those resources and completely moved them into more strategic type of things. So they’re now working on these long -term analytical things, starting to play with AI concepts. But they’re looking at a further use of all of this to where they actually move the dial a whole bunch. And they don’t have to worry about the day-to-day keating and feeding and carrying some of this stuff.

So they’ve actually taken and move those downstream by going to the cloud. So it’s definitely a very good resource reallocation, if you will. You do tend to get much better adherence to regulatory stuff. can do automation. So there’s all kinds of benefits. But yeah, we have some that have done very, very clever work that by adopting cloud technology and reaching out to their citizens, they’re really moving

Chris Arey (12:17)
Yeah, that’s excellent. Thanks, Bob.

Bob St. Ledger (12:19)
If I could just, can I add something to maybe remind me of one client of ours whose workforce was very concerned about cloud migration. They were like, what are we going to do once you’re in the cloud? so our contact at this state organization to alleviate the fears of their workforce said, you’re going to do something more important now.

In other words, as Bob was saying, can reallocate your team to do things that are really going to move the dial forward, really improve the citizenry engagement, really improve transparency and stuff processing like you did for 20 years on an old legacy platform.

Chris Arey (12:54)
That’s great. it sounds like then that in addition to being able to help organizations better serve their constituents, it’s also allowing them to more effectively use the resources they have by kind of like taking care of some of those more mundane or manual tasks by automating them. Is that correct?

Bob St. Ledger (13:12)
Yeah, absolutely. I would just say too that like a challenge across all public sector organizations and other industries as well, user attrition, employee attrition, employee retirement has been a big challenge. And so everybody struggles with how to attract the right talent to the organization. And so another really benefit to a cloud solution is it’s modern, it’s the way younger people want to interact with any kind of an application on their phone.

So by providing capabilities and platforms that they’re interested in, you can really attract the younger group. Could be right out of high school, not even someone who’s been through a college class or college degree to get programming experience. So that’s another huge benefit.

Chris Arey (13:55)
It’s great to hear that these municipalities are looking for ways to attract the next working generation and what better way to do it than through the technology that they’re already familiar

Bob St. Ledger (14:11)
Yeah, I would say too. I know we had a couple funny stories where one of our clients was approving time cards. so we’re asking other folks, you approve the time cards via your mobile device? And everybody says, we all do that. And this one particular client was using his remote mobile approval while he’s roping cattle. So I don’t think other folks really are quite doing it the same

Bob Benstead (14:31)
Well, legacy systems, I’ll tell you they’re the bane of existence for many of these organizations, you know, and the upside is there’s a lot of realization that people have to modernize. So there’s this, you you hear it in the buzzwords all the time, the digital transformation, what have you, but there’s some really rare, real stories out there.

Chris Arey (14:32)
That sounds like a great way to get the job done.

Bob Benstead (14:58)
One that comes to mind is that one of our clients out here in the West, they have a legacy system. They’re living day by day, it seems like. And they literally made the comment said, if they have to get someone to work on it, they’re gonna have to go to the local rest home to recruit people and pull them out in order to work on this system. And I thought, no system can be that old. Well, sure enough, they took me down the hall, opened it up, and yes, it is, it’s that old.

Chris Arey (15:16)
Hahaha

Bob Benstead (15:27)
So we do see that. And I tell you what, a lot of people are realizing that. And what’s nice about a cloud approach is you can adopt these and move this in and you won’t be going backwards. You have the ability to do this in a much more secure environment. The tools are now embedded where you don’t have to have an army of 40 ,000 people come in to get the system running and what have you. And it starts eliminating risk. We have a major transportation authority

West Coast that is going through cataloging all of their old, archaic legacy systems with the idea of establishing risk of those systems, how much they’re used, what is their strategic value.

And by cataloging those, their intention is to hopefully eliminate a bunch, combine it with some of the stuff that we have and move all of that eventually into a fully cloud, full multi -tenant model. So they’re so serious about it, they’re taking a major inventory of everything they have, establishing risk numbers to

Chris Arey (16:33)
Yeah, that’s great background there, Bob. It sounds like then that one of the first steps for kind of making this transition then is to kind of understand how you’re making use of your current systems and identifying ways to maybe consolidate some of those applications. Is that right?

Bob Benstead (16:50)
That would be a very fair statement. know, it’s nobody likes to go backwards. So you want to accommodate that. It’s an interesting dilemma, though, because some of those systems were coded specifically. They were bespoke systems, so they were coded so specifically for a client. One, they can’t be supported to very, very inflexible. But by moving some of these and being able to take advantage of this new technology and being able to.

take automation into play and workflow, easy workflow, visual workflow type stuff are examples of being able to take advantage of all these. And then the next step for a lot of these guys is to apply this new science, the machine learning stuff and the deep analytics and the IAI and all that.

So it really is something where the values there, they are taking what very detailed, very specific systems and being able to have the flexibility to apply those, but taking advantage of streamlining those and not having such a convoluted, hard to support system and yet giving them the outcome.

And that’s where we’re trying to work with our clients is to make sure don’t adopt and create something just for the sheer sake of technology or because it’ll cross the T for you. Make sure you understand the outcomes that you’re trying to do and then work towards that and so much more supportable in achieving those outcomes with this modern technology.

Chris Arey (18:23)
Got it. And so I feel like the elephant in the room here is that these things that we’re talking about here, this is all functionality that CloudSuite can deliver and more. know, understanding that it’s a great option for local, city, and state government in the same way that these city and county orgs are prioritizing the needs of the community, it sounds like Infor is kind of taking an ear to what’s going on in that space and is finding ways to better serve the public sector.

Is that correct? Is that accurate to say?

Bob St. Ledger (18:57)
And I would further clarify that by saying that some of the clients that we’re working with have picked the Infor platform because we’re providing solutions that’ll help them to modernize today, but also lay the groundwork for what’s happening in the next decade or two decades, which people don’t know what is going to happen, but you’re right, I have to have the right platform that has mobility, that has interconnectivity, that supports new technologies like AI and ML, etc.

And so again, we’re pretty excited with the platform we’re offering and the governments that are using us because they are seeing that, hey, we can get started today, we can get the right workforce, we can show transparency for our citizenry, we can do the reporting we need, and we’re ready for whatever new is coming down the pike with technology.

Chris Arey (19:41)
That’s awesome. know, and hearing you say that, it’s a similar sentiment to something another Infor guest recently shared on the show was Brianna Zink. And she was explaining how Infor was actively soliciting feedback from customers and users and partners to kind of influence the direction of the software.

So, stuff happening there and happy to hear that, you know, the software can also scale with an organization and build a foundation for the future to grow

Bob Benstead (20:12)
Yeah, you know, it’s important. We don’t want to do build it and hope they will come. You know, those days are past and we have a very active user community and thank gosh because we rely on them to provide us input while we have experts in the industry and we are very focused and our cycle and everything is dedicated to public sector and utilities.

We still don’t know everything. don’t, you know, we aren’t on the front desk taking those calls or answering those questions, whatever. So we have a number of methods for our clients to impart their situation, their problems, their needs, all that type of stuff, and the trends in the industry. We will hold various workshops. We’ll take a example of all of our different types of clients, depending on what area we’re working on, and we’ll hold workshops with them. And the nice thing about public sector

They’re not in a competitive vote. So there are no trade secrets that they have to protect. There are no IP things that they’re afraid to get out on the street.

They’re a very collaborative group for the most part. having that forum and then holding workshops, we have no shortage of input from our clients. So we do the workshops. On top of that, we have advisory boards that are made up representing the greater community as a whole.

Chris Arey (21:28)
Hmm.

Bob Benstead (21:38)
And they’re very active. We hold periodic conversations with them. We review roadmaps. What is their priorities? Are there suggestions? Are we’re on the right track? Are we not?

So the advisory boards are great. We also then follow that with various review sessions. OK, guys, we took what you said. We’re developing. We’re putting it into the software. We’re going to give you a first peek now. Tell us

accurate we are, this meets your needs. So we’ll have these review sessions. We’re going through that right now in our products for the current roadmap. We’re getting feedback on what we’ve already accomplished.

And believe it or not, they’re not shy about telling us the good, the bad, and what we want to see. And we have to throttle that. And then we have trials. know, lastly, once we get to a point, we offer limited basis, not everybody, but trial efforts to make sure early adopters and all that.

But the key is we always want the feedback. We always want to have dialogue. We want to keep the communications channels open. And there’s a lot of benefits that go on just beyond the software development and the relevancy to public sector. It opens up the communications to a lot more people on both sides. rather than a vendor -client relationship, they’ll start more fit into much more of a partnership relationship.

And that’s where everybody wins. You everybody gets that point where it’s very easy to have those conversations and it builds upon itself. So those are some of the ways that we’re doing it, but I can’t, I gotta say that sum is greater than the parts on that one. Relationship wise and communication wise.

Chris Arey (23:21)
That’s excellent, Bob. Thank you. Hearing the partnership relationship too, I think that’s where RPI fits into this ecosystem as well. You shared something there that I hadn’t thought about and I thought that was really interesting is that in the public sector space, it is collaborative and the competition is not really a factor.

So it’s interesting to hear how, you know, they’re all in it together, working towards a brighter future and kind of like hearing the feedback of their, you know, counterparts on how to get the most out of their software and how to better serve the community. So, go ahead. Yeah.

Bob Benstead (23:56)
Well, yeah, if I could just add to that, when you’re in that situation, and I’m saying this because we recent read it, all these new regulations and this future thought and what’s going to happen 20 years, I’ll use an example in the water industry. There are things coming in the water industry that will dynamically change in the years to come. But by having that collaborative effort with our clients, they’re already being hit by legislation.

They’re already being hit by some of these policy discussions that happened that may not kick in for five or 10 years, but those discussions are happening now. And by including these guys in that.

Chris Arey (24:33)
Yeah, no, I’d love to explore that topic, Bob. We’re going to save the water for another segment, but I would love to hear about it. But thank you for sharing that. And I have to say, we’re getting close to time. So I want to thank you both again for joining me. But before we wrap up, I’d like to ask my guests a very important question. And that’s this. If you could offer today’s audience one piece of advice regarding our topic today, what would it be?

And Bob, can start with you.

Bob St. Ledger (25:04)
And before I answer that one, can I just make a comment too? RPI is a critical partner of ours at Infor. Everything from leading a new essentials program, which is targeted toward the smaller and growing communities. Also, the K -12 community, which we’ll talk about in another podcast. RPI is taking the lead on a new capability that we’re reintroducing our multi -tenant cloud. So again, a lot of kudos to the RPI team for providing a lot of guidance and et cetera for us. Again, thanks for

Bob Benstead (25:06)
Sure, I think the biggest thing

Chris Arey (25:34)
Thank you Bob St. Ledger that is. And Bob Benstead.

Bob Benstead (25:39)
Yeah, I think, you know, as we go forward with these partners and make sure we are staying relevant, that we’re hitting the targets we need, you know, whether that services, support, product, whatever, we always want to make sure they’re establishing realistic goals. And they’re not adopting technology for the sake of technology, this whole AI thing, it’s going to be enormously beneficial.

There’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s the wild west for all intents and purposes now, but it does have enormous benefits. But make sure our advice is always make sure the goals you’re looking for are realistic, obtainable, relevant, not just now, but in the future. So you’re not revisiting this subject two years from now. Backing that, you have to make sure that your policies and your governance in place.

And you’re seeing that now with data itself. You’re seeing a lot of people realize this data is enormous, but we don’t have policies managing it or who can access it. How do you use it in AI? Is it valid to use it? You’ve heard the stories. So governance policies and all that executive sponsorship. You’ve got to have executive sponsorship as you’re taking these on. That is a very important must because that one.

Chris Arey (26:52)
Mmm.

Bob Benstead (26:59)
they’re doing strategic decisions and they are answering to the electorate. And so that’s very important. And finally, you’ve got to measure the success. Sometimes they don’t work. So make sure you measure these as you go along and make sure the benefits are being realized. And if not, adjust, you know, but put that measurement process in as you’re going forward with all these different initiatives and

Chris Arey (27:24)
Yeah, that’s great, Bob. Especially that last point there about measuring. It’s like, you don’t know where you’re at unless you’re taking the time to actually take a look down and see where you’re standing. So I appreciate that. in general, I think a lot of that advice is good outside of the context of this episode. But as I mentioned, we are getting close to time. I’m excited to do a follow -up segment. And for those of you tuning in, we do the RPI Tech Connect podcast. It’s bi -weekly.

Be sure to subscribe and we’ll stay up to date on what’s coming next. Thank you, Bob’s, for joining me. I have to say our conversation was much more enjoyable than the conversation in office space that has two Bob consultants. So I appreciate that. For those of you tuning in, if you have any questions about our segment or cloud suite or anything else, please feel free to email us at podcast@rpic.com. Again, that’s podcast@rpic.com.

This is RPI Tech Connect, and I’m your host Chris Arey. We’ll see you next

Bob St. Ledger (28:28)
Thank you

Bob Benstead (28:32)
Cool, thanks.