Abstract
The federal government faces challenges in IT management and service delivery, including increasing legacy IT costs, continuously shrinking budgets, talent attraction and retention, rapidly evolving technology changes, and citizen trust. We will discuss how Outcomes as a Service (OaaS) is a model that federal agencies can employ to address these challenges and how it allows the government to leverage industry partners to build solutions with the latest technology and expertise while freeing up federal employees to focus on their core missions and services.
Setting the course for the future
The federal government is at a critical juncture, continuously serving citizens while navigating complex institutional challenges. Agencies grapple with attracting and retaining talent, the increasing cost of legacy IT, and shrinking budgets amidst rapidly increasing citizen expectations and a rapidly changing sociopolitical landscape that necessitates faster, more immediate solutions. This moment demands thinking differently about providing mission-critical services.
Amidst these formidable challenges, a compelling need arises for innovative solutions that align with modern demands. In the government-facing services industry, there has been an important strategic shift towards Outcomes as a Service (OaaS), a model designed to address the inefficiencies of traditional approaches. By focusing on delivering measurable results rather than solely on inputs and labor hours, OaaS promises to streamline operations, enhance service delivery, and optimize resource allocation.
To understand why OaaS represents a pivotal step forward, let’s look at the top three challenges facing government IT and how OaaS can alleviate them:
Increasing Costs with Shrinking Budgets
Have you looked into hiring a ColdFusion developer recently? The cost is more than you would think. Maintaining legacy IT solutions built on outdated platforms and code tends to get more expensive yearly. These rising costs are increasing pressure on budgets, forcing agencies to reprioritize and reallocate resources, which impacts IT acquisition and mission system modernization. This is compounded by agencies across the civil sector having significant outstanding technical debt; technology services consumers in the federal space have indicated that cost is a driving factor for seeking new delivery models. At Booz Allen, we’ve seen a recent shift, with many agencies combining licensing/software, equipment/hardware, operations and maintenance, development, modernization, and enhancement support into one contract. OaaS offers a solution to this dilemma by shifting the focus from owning and maintaining IT systems to contracting based on achieving specific goals with measurable outcomes. This maximizes efficiency by directly tying spending to specific outcomes so that every dollar spent contributes to tangible public benefit and makes impactful use of limited resources. And because this model is designed with specific performance metrics, it provides greater control over spending. Typically, the government assumes the financial risk of cost overruns and project failure, but OaaS shifts this risk to service providers because payment is contingent on achieving predefined outcomes—incentivizing providers to deliver projects on time and within budget.
Persistent Technology Changes and Increasing Adoption
Operating within today’s continuously evolving technology landscape requires the ability to nimbly and frequently adopt new technologies. Rapid advancements in areas like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and data analytics are transforming how government services are delivered and managed. Keeping pace presents the challenge of managing ongoing investments in infrastructure, training, and system security. Legacy systems must be integrated or replaced to harness the potential of new technologies. This modernization transition requires careful planning and resource allocation. In OaaS, the service provider takes on the financial burden of these upgrades by incorporating the latest technology into their service offerings, allowing the government to leverage cutting-edge tech without the need for continual investment in new infrastructure.
Changing Workforce Dynamics Demand Scalable Options
A shrinking labor pool, changing workplace expectations, and an increased need for highly skilled IT expertise are making it increasingly tricky to maintain a balanced federal workforce. The shift towards remote and hybrid work environments requires flexible IT solutions that can support distributed teams. OaaS service offerings include cloud-based and scalable solutions that can be accessed securely from any location. As technology evolves, the skills required to manage and maintain IT systems also change. OaaS allows the government to leverage the expertise of service providers who stay current on the latest technology and related best practices, helping clients bridge the gap on access to cutting-edge technology with extensive in-house training and development. Outsourcing IT services allows government agencies to focus on their core functions and missions, as well as allowing better allocation of resources to provide the most impact on public services.
OaaS presents the federal government with a solution to relieve pressures on budgets, resources, and human capital utilization. It supports welcome changes in acquisition and governance, service delivery models, and engagement, and expands opportunities to better serve the American public in a more direct, technologically relevant, and secure way.
OaaS Allows Agencies to Maximize Resources and Focus on Mission
There are two main ways that OaaS enables the federal government to focus more on work that directly impacts core missions:
- Streamlining technology management
- Ensuring that IT investments directly contribute to achieving the desired outcomes.
IT management requires significant time, expertise, and budget to keep systems up-to-date and secure. By outsourcing these responsibilities, agencies can avoid getting bogged down by the complexities of IT maintenance and free up internal resources for critical mission efforts such as delivering essential public services.
OaaS incentivizes service providers to develop innovative solutions and optimize their offerings to meet performance metrics, ensuring that their government clients have the most effective and current technology for the outcomes they want to achieve and receive it within pre-determined time frames. OaaS also allows for rapid scaling of IT services without the need for significant new investments in infrastructure. The enhanced operational efficiency and agility that result further free up resources for mission-oriented work.
Recreation.gov—the website where members of the public can go to book and manage reservations and permits for camping, hunting, backpacking, and other activities on public lands—is a prime example of how Booz Allen has employed the OaaS model. We built and now manage the operation and maintenance of the site, continuously improving and adding new offerings to it, ensuring that it always maintains required security protocols and delivers smooth customer experiences, even during seasonal surge periods. By producing a complete solution for the clients involved—a coalition of more than a dozen agencies, including the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—we built a strategic partnership to stand up to 21st-century IT challenges.
As a genuinely paradigmatic shift in how government acquires and consumes IT products and services, OaaS has the potential to transform the relationship between mission and technology, allowing agencies to embrace the cutting edge and operate more nimbly than ever. Amazingly, it can accomplish this while freeing agencies to commit fewer resources to IT management and more to the missions and services that strengthen the nation and improve the lives of the American people.
