Accenture-Technology-Vision-2014-Building-Cities-for-the-Digital-Citizen

Technology
Vision 2014
Building Cities for
the Digital Citizen

Building cities
for the digital citizen
1

While cities have been catching up and
investing in new technology, we believe the
focus has been geared too much towards the
technology products and solutions, and not
enough on the end users – the citizens, local
entrepreneurs, city workers, tourists and other
parts of the community.
We believe that cities and digital government need to adopt a more humancentered
design approach in order to better serve their citizens, and enable more
agile and responsive city institutions - delivering public service for the future.
This report takes a closer look at four of the six trends identified in the
Accenture Technology Vision 2014, to understand how they are affecting
cities and their citizens. For each of the trends highlighted in this report,
we provide an illustrative example from people in leading cities around the
world, before explaining how the technology actually works, and profiling
the specific technology trend underpinning this particular shift.
2

Sensing digital
city infrastructure
UPDATES
ORDER
LOG
UPLOAD
NEXT JOB
PRIORITY
Rob, an engineer working for a major city
in the United States, has dramatically
increased his productivity since the city
introduced a 3D asset map two years ago,
providing real-time information tagged to
specific assets (such as buildings and gas
pipes), as well as individual city assets.
In the past he would waste time driving
between jobs, only to find a problem
had already been fixed, he now uses his
smartphone to access the 3D asset map
and his related work order system. He
also gets automatic updates on where
he will be working that day, and which
jobs need immediate attention.
Rob can also use his smartphone to
order any necessary equipment or
parts he may need on site. He can also
upload a geotagged photo of the job,
for verification and as a reference in
case any issues crop up down the line.
After doing this initial piece of work,
which might have taken a few hours
longer than expected, he can confirm it’s
complete – and get a live update on his
the next priority, based on his current
location, making him more productive.
3

How it works
The real-time data available to city leaders
through the 3D asset map includes: per
hour energy usage and occupancy rates
for buildings and assets, as well as status
information (broken windows or district
heating pipes, for example).
This information is tracked via sensors
throughout the city that send real-time
information and data back to the core 3D
asset map.
This data enhances city leaders’
knowledge of their buildings’ age, use
and energy efficiency rating, which in
turn makes it easier to prioritize and
schedule maintenance activities and
retrofits. The data also helps city leaders
to improve the productivity of their
employees, as they will only target the
jobs requiring immediate attention, and it
is easier to match those with the correct
skills to the most appropriate jobs.
Underlying trend:
Digital-physical blur
The physical and digital worlds are
becoming increasingly intertwined as
the emergence of smart objects, devices
and machines gives us greater awareness
and control over our environment.
What is emerging is more than just
an “Internet of Things”; it’s a new
layer of connected intelligence that
augments the actions of individuals,
automates processes, and incorporates
digitally empowered machines into our
lives, increasing our insight into and
control over the tangible world.
This trend is readily apparent in cities,
where embedded sensors are helping city
workers monitor performance, establishing
real-time connections to the physical world,
allowing them to react faster and more
intelligently to changing circumstances.
Outcomes for
stakeholders
• Citizens can enjoy safer and more
liveable cities when infrastructre such
as bridges, roads and buildings can be
monitored, maintained and managed
more effectively.
• City assets can become more
resource efficient, saving energy,
water and maintenance costs, while
also reducing downtime.
• City employees can be directed to where
they are needed. There is less duplication
of work, greater workforce and
government productivity, reduced travel
time and the correct skills are more easily
matched to the right jobs.
• It is easier to make projections about
future asset performance when asset
performance data is collected and
observed over long periods.
4

Enabling community
collaboration
WHAT
WOULD
YOU LIKE
THIS SPACE
TO BECOME?
SUBMIT
YOUR
IDEAS
FOR THIS
SPACE
CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUND
BACKERS
______________________
______________________
______________________
Diana, a 30-something mother living in one
of Australia’s main cities, is walking home
from the supermarket when she spots a
sign in an empty car park that says, “What
would you like this space to become?” A
closer look reveals a ‘Plan Your City’ logo,
and a quick response (QR) code she can
scan with her smartphone.
The code leads to a website inviting
residents to submit ideas for how
neighborhood spaces might be used. The
local council will match funding for popular
ideas once they reach a specific tipping
point, determined by the cost of similar
projects. She decides to submit an idea to
turn the lot into a children’s playground, as
the nearest one at the moment is more than
a mile from her house.
In the following weeks, Diana excitedly
tracks her idea’s progress through push
updates via the council’s dedicated app,
which she shares further amongst her
friends on Facebook and Twitter to get
further backing. It’s by far the most popular
suggestion, and many of her neighbors
show their backing by donating money.
She’s delighted when it reaches the $2,500
tipping point, and an email arrives from the
city council notifying her that her proposal
has been selected for local government
backing. She can’t wait for the underused
car park to be turned into a new playground
where her kids can play.
5

How it works
City and digital government leaders in
Diana’s area created an app and dedicated
social media forum for local discussion
and sharing ideas. These tools give citizens
a direct channel of communication to
the authorities managing public projects,
and also provides a separate portal for
the citizen consultation process, giving
people a clear voice to city leaders.
City administrators’ investment in this
technology has helped them increase
engagement levels with citizens like Diana,
who posts regular updates about her
neighborhood’s great new playground,
and her pride in being part of the process
of getting it designed and built.
The website also helps secure match funding
for projects, by calculating the assumed and
past costs of similar projects in the city.
The citizen consultation process for
public projects is also more efficient, as
feedback can be provided digitally through
questionnaires or via personal submissions.
Digital technologies also help the city reach
more citizens – from those who might
otherwise be too busy to attend council
meetings, to others physically unable to
travel or otherwise engage. It also brings
greater transparency to the actual design
and development phase, providing updates
on likely timings for work to commence and
when and where any disruption might be felt.
Underlying trend:
From workforce to
crowdsource
Cloud, social and other collaboration
technologies are allowing cities to tap
into vast pools of human resource, by
reaching out to people who are motivated
to solve community problems. Known
as crowdsourcing, this phenomenon
provides cities with access to new
ideas, an expanded and cost-effective
workforce, and a wide range of skillsets.
For example, websites such as Brickstarter
have demonstrated how a shared platform
between citizens and policymakers can
enable communities to have a say in the
long-term developments affecting their
local environment. It also gives citizens a
clear means of adding their voice to any
debate around public policy – and to get
directly involved in a project in some way.
Such digital platforms can also give cities
access to what we call the ‘expanded
workforce’. Specific problems are
advertised and a whole community of
local ideas, talent and knowledge can
be tapped to help solve them. Often,
this workforce can be put into action at
little or no cost, as it consists of citizens
who are passionate about helping to
improve the areas where they live.
Outcomes for
stakeholders
• Fundamentally, this technology delivers
increased citizen engagement with
government. It provides a more visceral
connection with the local community,
and a clearer understanding of how
their tax money is being allocated.
• More public projects can be started
because crowdsourcing can cut
the costs of getting work done and
citizens themselves may provide
some of the necessary funding.
• City leaders can better understand
the priorities of their citizens,
leading to better planning and
more personalized services.
• Citizens obtain a greater sense
of pride and ownership over their
communities because of the input
they have had in shaping them.
• The speed at which public projects can
be completed is significantly increased
as stakeholder feedback can be sought
immediately via digital channels, reducing
the length of the consultation process.
6

Growing the
digital city economy
SMALL COMPANY
Eric is a digital entrepreneur, running a small
company of data scientists and product
designers in a growing Scandinavian city.
He and his team are using the city’s recently
launched open data platform to boost their
business. Thanks to the huge range of public
and private data Eric and his colleagues can
now access through a monthly subscription
from the city.
Eric and his team want to build an app to
help small restaurants and cafés better
predict busy periods - helping them better
manage their stock and staffing levels,
and cut operating costs. Eric combines
data from the meteorological institute, the
port authority (which monitors incoming
cruise ships) and the city’s airport, along
with anonymized footfall data from a local
mobile operator, which provides a summary
view of population density and movements.
Eric and his team believe that using these
data sets could enable them to create
an algorithm that produces forecasts of
footfall in specific areas of the city. If it
works out, he’ll not only have another hit
app on his hands, but he’ll be able to build
his firm, adding more staff and allowing him
to tackle other opportunities. The city also
directly benefits from the expansion of its
burgeoning hub of digital SMEs, providing
attractive new highly skilled jobs.
7

How it works
The city works with the private sector
to establish a technology infrastructure
that enables and encourages public
and private data to be shared.
The platform was developed with a focus
on security and governance around who
can access the data and how it will be
used. This has helped build trust among
the data owners and means that people
are more inclined to share their data.
Also, as digital entrepreneurs such as
Eric develop impressive new apps, the
case for sharing further data – such as
spending patterns or mobile location
for instance – continues to grow.
The main business case for the platform
relies on a “freemium” model –access
to basic and open data is free of charge,
but if digital entrepreneurs want higher
quality real-time data, or access to more
high-end proprietary data sets, like mobile
propagation, there is a small monthly fee.
Underlying trend:
Data supply chain
The technology to collect and analyze
large amounts of data is becoming
ever more sophisticated, generating a
stream of new innovation opportunities
for those able to harness it.
Many cities however, are yet to realize the
true value of their data. One of the main
problems is that most city governments
– similar to a lot of large private
enterprises – hold data in many different
formats across a range of individual
departments, creating a set of data silos.
This makes the data difficult to access and
therefore hard to extract value from.
To turn that around, cities must start
treating data more like a supply chain,
enabling it to flow easily and usefully
through the entire organization – in more
standardized and accessible formats.
Building on this, they must then work
to open up their data to be shared with
partners such as private companies,
academic institutions and research
houses. This also requires commercial
savvy: working out good pricing or
business models to facilitate broad
access, while potentially opening up new
sustainable revenue streams for the city.
City administrators need to change how
their organizations work with data at
every stage to ensure its accuracy and
efficient processing across the organization.
The sharing of this data can then enable
digital entrepreneurs to add value through
analytics and data visualization tools.
Outcomes for
stakeholders
• The potential for digital entrepreneurs
to create successful new businesses
through developing analytics algorithms
and apps is significantly increased.
Vast amounts of data become available
at low or no cost, creating the raw
materials for them to thrive.
• Citizens are able to benefit from
a huge range of applications and
services that can assist them in many
ways, from planning travel routes to
wellness and healthcare monitoring.
• City administrators can harness
insights from data across a wide
range of public services to help
improve their effectiveness.
• City governments are able to raise
funds to be put towards other projects
by charging small subscription
fees to those who would like to
access high-end datasets.
• Pressure is relieved on the city’s
infrastructure as applications and data
analysis enables citizens to make smarter
decisions on travel, while governments
have more detailed insight upon which
to base future investment decisions.
8

Delivering a more
agile city hall
WORK
BILL
Adhi is an office worker in a major Indonesian
city. He drives in from his home on the city
outskirts each day. One morning, he notices
a pothole in a road he frequently travels on,
which he considers to be a danger to road
users. Adhi takes a picture of the pothole
using a new city app he has installed on his
smartphone, and hits submit – all the relevant
information is automatically captured and
fed through to the city’s response team.
processes the geo-tagged image from
Adhi’s smartphone, which in turn advises
Katon of its exact location, and whether
similar reports have already been received.
Katon can then set a relative priority status
against Adhi’s report and, if necessary,
send out an urgent alert to roadwork
engineers to fix the problem, all before
he has even returned to the office.
Council administrator Katon is out at a
meeting when he receives a smartphone
notification via his department’s new
customer relationship management (CRM)
app, informing him that a new issue
has been reported. The CRM software
9

How it works
The app uses cloud technology to bridge
the current divide between citizens, city
workers and the current back-end systems
already in place. It is able to store and
update any new information it receives
from citizens like Adhi in the cloud, as well
as accessing relevant information from his
device: location, time and date,
and how serious the issue is. All
this real-time data can be accessed
by city managers, to get a live
picture of civic issues affecting the
city and requiring a response.
Within the city council, internal apps,
such as the CRM system, are also helping
to receive and process the data being sent
in from smartphones. This helps the data
integrate automatically into the city’s
systems, give it a relative prioritization,
and deliver automated alerts and
notifications to help improve both internal
communication and citizen feedback.
Since the CRM system is also cloudbased,
it supports the transfer of data
to the mobile devices held by its staff.
This means that Katon is able to react to
the push-based notifications and tasks
he receives, wherever and whenever
he’s on the job or available for work.
Underlying trend:
Business of
applications
The way we build software is changing.
Mimicking the shift in the consumer world,
organizations are rapidly moving from
enterprise applications – big, complex
software systems – to simpler, more
modular, and more customized apps.
Modern citizens expect to be able to
interact with organizations, including digital
government through digital technology,
not least as private sector firms flood the
market with apps tailored to customer
needs. And city employees are looking for
consumer-grade experiences too. They want
user-friendly systems that enable them to
be productive anytime and anywhere.
In response to this trend, cities need to
put greater focus on IT agility. Cities need
ecosystems of applications that can, while
still remaining simple and agile, be bolted
together to tackle the most challenging
problems, and can be easily scaled up
where greater capacity is needed.
Outcomes for
stakeholders
• Citizens become far more engaged
with city leaders given the ease and
simplicity of reporting civic issues such
as potholes. A simple digital photo can
deliver all the necessary information to
city administrators, so citizens are not
deterred by the prospect of a lengthy
phone call to reach the right department.
• Greater citizen engagement ultimately
means more real-time data is fed back
to city administrators, creating an
invaluable resource on which to apply
new analytic techniques that aid in
understanding of behavioral patterns
and city maintenance requirements.
• City employees are able to do their
jobs more effectively, and productivity
is increased, as more user-friendly
internal applications deliver them
the information they need on a realtime
basis via mobile devices.
• Government organizations have
improved agility in responding to
any temporary increase in demands
for their services, using cloud-based
applications to rapidly scale up capacity.
• Government service levels for citizens are
raised, as apps enable faster interactions
and improved responsiveness.
10

Lead as a model digital city
Every city is at a different point in the journey to becoming truly intelligent by
maximizing the potential of technology to improve the lives of its citizens. As they strive
to compete in a global marketplace, cities will need to put a plan in place to develop the
digital capabilities outlined within this report.
Accenture has created a roadmap that illustrates where city and digital government
should focus their efforts to build a competitive edge for the future. The pathways taken
on this roadmap will depend on the needs of each city, but we believe there are six
distinct strands to the journey—and that cities need to face them as quickly as possible.
Define a comprehensive
digital stakeholder
engagement roadmap
Take an inventory
of all current
digital efforts
Develop online and
mobile service access
for all stakeholders to
provide a seamless
user experience
STRAND 1
Drive stakeholder
engagement
Develop a cloud
roadmap
Establish a private
cloud for core service
delivery systems
Build scalable
storage for
core data
STRAND 2
Develop core
IT services
Define the
metrics for
success
Determine whether
the city is structured
for digital
transformation with
agility to adapt quickly
Ensure there are no
organizational or
governance barriers to
creating the urban
information marketplace
TODAY
STRAND 3
Boost local economy
STRAND 4
Set executive
leadership
Set a dedicated executive
responsible for driving all
digital initiatives across the
city, to ensure any related
strategy is actually delivered
Establish appropriate
security controls over
public information in
open data platforms
STRAND 5
Sustainability
Develop a strategy for
sustainability based on
digital metrics
Understand and evaluate current
data capture and reformat core data
for new internal analytics
STRAND 6
Resilience
Map and prioritize possible
security threats and
operational failure scenarios
Develop a strategy to
handle elastic demand
for IT services
11

The urban information marketplace
Public and private city data is made available to citizens, entrepreneurs and
government on a greater scale than ever before. This highly useful data can be a
source for new business opportunities, better service delivery, and can help citizens
better navigate the challenges of city living.
Create integrated
social channels for
all stakeholders
Augment digital
experiences
with deeper
personalization
Develop real-time
responses
Streamline digital experiences
to engage stakeholders with
enhanced personalization and
real-time optimization
Populate data
storage with current
and new data
Integrate external
data sources to
augment internal data
Develop an application
programming interface
(API) system to allow
data access
Optimize IT to
continually adapt to
the needs of a
digital city
Pilot the urban information marketplace,
using results to create a multi-year
roadmap for partnering with digital
entrepreneurs to deliver new tailored
products and services to citizens
Evaluate the possibilities of
opening up specific APIs to the
developer community
Refine support mechanisms
for the urban information
marketplace, ensuring your
city is open for business
VISION
Help enable integration of
city government data
infrastructure with privately
held systems
Take a broader strategic remit,
looking beyond government IT
architecture, towards the
entire city’s data ecosystem
Build a real-time analytics
infrastructure to allow for
real-time insights
Based on this information, install
a robust value framework and
project management tools to
embed sustainable practices
Optimize digital capabilities and
agility of systems, to continually
adapt to the needs of a model
digital sustainable city
Mitigate downtime risks by
aiming to shift compute loads
to public cloud infrastructure
Consider piloting automated
root-cause analysis tools in your
city’s main data center
12

Delivering Public
Service for the Future
Each strand of the journey outlined in the diagram above
presents a critical milestone where cities can pause, measure
progress and plan their next steps. Some key considerations
for each of those strands are below.
Building the foundation
Rather than continuing efforts in the same
way as the last 10 years, plan for the future
by building a scalable technical infrastructure
and an organizational structure that lends
itself to a digital future, including freeing up
digital resources to citizens.
Innovate and adapt
Improve analytical abilities to support new
modes of stakeholder engagement and
personalized service delivery that offer
citizens seamless user experiences.
Cities are evolving quickly as they battle for
investment and talent in a global economy
that is reorienting itself around digital. New
technologies are changing the way that
private and public organizations interact
with consumers and citizens. The key for
cities is to understand that people must
be at the heart of this change, and that
their digital future must be built upon this
cornerstone. By following the steps outlined
in this paper, city leaders can prepare their
cities for the digital age - delivering public
service for the future.
Lead as a model digital city
The outstanding cities of the future will
harness digital technology to improve
engagement between stakeholders and city
leaders, to manage their assets in a smarter
way, and to create further innovative
solutions to improve the lives of citizens.
13

Contact us
Steven Hurst
Managing Director,
Digital Government,
Health & Public Service
Tel: +1 917-567-9311
e-mail: steven.hurst@accenture.com
Simon Giles
Senior Manager,
Health & Public Service
Tel: +44 78-8152-8852
e-mail: simon.w.giles@accenture.com
Connect with us to learn more on
delivering public service for the future
on Twitter @AccenturePubSvc
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with more than
293,000 people serving clients in more
than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive capabilities
across all industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the world’s
most successful companies, Accenture
collaborates with clients to help them
become high-performance businesses and
governments. The company generated
net revenues of US$28.6 billion for
the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its
home page is www.accenture.com.
About Delivering Public
Service for the Future
What does it take to deliver public service
for the future? Public service leaders must
embrace four structural shifts—advancing
toward personalized services, insight-driven
operations, a public entrepreneurship
mindset and a cross-agency commitment
to mission productivity. By making these
shifts, leaders can support flourishing
societies, safe, secure nations and economic
vitality for citizens in a digital world—
delivering public service for the future.
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