The Nomad Wireless Briefing - September/October 2006
A briefing to discuss: Unwiring the Local Authority; Building a Partnership to Deliver Wireless Public Services; Planning for a Hybrid Technical Architecture; Future of the Forum - Nomad Needs You
A briefing to discuss: Wireless Technologies Supporting Business Value; Towards Transformative Government; Rural and Urban Wireless Solutions; Future of the Forum - Nomad Needs You
A briefing to discuss: Wireless Infrastructure – Choosing the Right Business Model; Wireless Technology Choices; Preparing for Mobility – Mobile Application Characteristics; Future of the Forum – Nomad Wireless Needs You!
A briefing to discuss: The Current Wireless Landscape; Wireless Technology - an Enabler of Shared Services; Wi-Fi and WiMAX for Beginners; Drivers for Wireless - Transferable, Scalable, Affordable, Replicable; The Digital Challenge.
Throughout the UK, local authorities have worked hard to improve service delivery through information technology (IT). Back-office systems have helped local authorities to meet productivity targets and new standards of citizen service.
Wireless technologies are at the forefront of new ways of communicating with governments, citizens and businesses and are becoming viewed as another utility like electricity or water.
In order to understand the potential of wireless technology and how it supports business, it is necessary to articulate the value of that business in terms and a context that are familiar and make sense to a local authority. In doing so, local authorities can begin to make decisions to support efficient business activities.
Turning Technology into Business Value
The term Business Value (reference: IT Business Value Metrics Program, Intel Information Technology White Paper, April 2003) is used to describe the contribution that IT makes in enabling an organisation to meet its strategic objectives. In order to determine the financial impact of technology, we need to see evidence of:
A direct contribution to the local authority’s revenues
A direct or enabling contribution to cost reduction
Deliverables and results that support the local authority’s vision and mandate
Technology investment that has tangibly impacted service delivery and the transformation agenda
Using financial measures we can plot a picture of the value of a process to the business. The picture for mobilising social workers will be different to that for connecting council buildings wirelessly. Typically accompanying a technology investment, complimentary investments are required in business process change and possibly organisational change and training.
If, as an example, we were considering an investment in broadband, software and laptops to support employees delivering services to the local authorities housing stock, we may consider some of the following to be suitable measures of value:
Outcome: Reduced Cost of Service Delivery Definition: Can we reduce the office rent by occupying less space due to mobile working?
Outcome: Employee Safety Definition: Are employees safer as a result of providing them with technology? Can they wirelessly notify someone before entering premises so that their location is known?
Outcome: Headcount Equilibrium Definition: Does the technology allow us to do more work with the same people?
Outcome: Increased throughput Definition: Can we now visit more premises per day? Can we process more claims per day?
So, What Do We Measure?
Local authorities need business value metrics to justify whether an improvement in IT infrastructure and accompanying mobilised applications will yield value to the process under review. This can be done by associating a measure to each outcome. It will be easier to determine some measures (e.g. reduce headcount) than others (e.g. increased safety). Figure.1. illustrates how we might assign measures in our example of mobilised housing management.
Measuring the Value
Now that we have identified a means of translating general value drivers into measures, we can translate this into real value as outlined in the following table:
Outcome: Reduced Cost of Service Delivery Calculation: Office Space Reduction by 30% Current Cost: £100,000 New Cost: £80,000
Outcome: Service Effectiveness Measure: Back Office Admin Reduced by 50% Calculation: 5 Staff at £50k per person Current Cost: £250,000 New Cost: £125,000
Outcome: Increased Throughput Measure: Increased # of Claims Processed Calculation: 10 workers processing 20 claims each per day at a cost of £55 each. Expected to rise to 25 claims per day. Current Cost: £11,000 New Cost: £13,750
Total Current Cost: £361,000 Total New Cost: £218,750
Total Gross Saving:£142,250
This is the baseline for the project and now some understanding of the potential value of the solution can be determined.
The same exercise can be used to determine the costs for each proposed application, which can provide valuable data for making a decision between competing technologies or demonstrate that the project will not achieve the anticipated benefits. The local authority, armed with this knowledge, has an opportunity to change the direction of the program prior to significant investment.
Many local authorities have taken bold steps in developing wireless strategies and delivering mobility. Applications that reduce paperwork, make data available to workers in the field and generally improve productivity can be seen all over the UK. But does this really help local authorities with the big challenge of transformation? This article reviews the path towards transformation using mobility as a stepping stone rather than the end of the journey.
Towards Transformative Applications
Local authorities have traditionally been organised vertically in separate departments, each with their own plans, roles, responsibilities, resource and work practices. IT applications have followed a similar pattern. While software solutions may prove effective in one part of the organisation, it is often the case that the applications cannot be used outside of the department.
Government transformation programmes aim to address these inefficiencies by moving from vertical and separate service delivery by each internal organisation to horizontal government based on integrated data, processes and cooperation. Many governments have already delivered process efficiencies through new applications and wireless technologies. Increasingly ‘mobilised’ applications are making it easier for local authorities to deploy resources more intelligently, reduce paperwork and increase productivity.
Few governments however have realised transformation. To do so requires governments to re-engineer service delivery and integrate processes across government departments. Transformation requires asking the questions:
How do we best integrate and transact within departments and with third sector bodies as part of a shared services agenda?
How do we re-engineer our business processes and our underlying IT to support our transformation agendas?
Transformative Phases
The Gershon report and the Lyons Inquiry require government to not merely tweak their business processes, but to fundamentally change their entire organisation. Transformed government must be completely customer-service oriented, while delivering ever-increasing levels of governance efficiency.
Transformation is an evolutionary process whereby a local authority builds on existing assets, infrastructure and expertise to take advantage of new technologies and changing government demands. Many local authorities have aggregated the capabilities of their networks with features such as shared calendars, video streaming and access to back-end systems and have taken the first steps in “mobilising” these applications. In parallel, IT departments have been focussing on the integration of government departments through service oriented architectures and messaging technology. This activity is enabling a single view of the citizen and more complex transactions while also tackling issues around privacy and security.
Figure. 2. Towards Transformative Applications (Note: Image adapted from Realising the Potential of Government Transformation, IBM, March 2005)
Departmental
Local authorities often start their journey towards transformation by first understanding and then simplifying their IT infrastructure. Wireless technology is making it easier to do away with separate IT infrastructures, reduce the number of servers and network components needed, perhaps allowing local authorities to consolidate their IT needs into one department.
Individual departments will most likely have their own set of applications built up to serve their particular needs. At this stage in the process it is prudent to review the relevance of these applications and determine if possible whether the application can be eliminated or replaced with one from another department.
Partial Integration
Having consolidated systems somewhat, organisations can further reduce costs and operate more efficiently by sharing IT resources. Applications may for example be able to utilise data from another department. Local Authorities often provide some partial integration by collating cross-departmental data in a portal that disseminates information to citizens about the authority and its services.
At this phase some applications are often ‘mobilised’ through a shared security and network infrastructure.
Enterprise Integration
Enterprise integration requires that departments within a local authority can easily share data and business processes so that not only will back-end processes be improved but the organisation is moving towards a single view of the customer.
This is an opportune time to take the leap from mobilised applications based on wireless technologies to transformed applications based on re-engineered business processes. Re-engineering business processes allows revised applications to leverage shared infrastructure (e.g. message broker and transaction management software, wireless broadband from device to device)
External Integration
The organisation at this phase is well positioned to execute on its shared services agenda. IT infrastructure, security protocols and standardised business processes enable sharing of data and collaboration between the local authority and other governments. This makes for more efficient resource utilisation while providing avenues to explore better service delivery with third sector partners through the sharing of data, services and infrastructure.
Dynamic Integration
A fully integrated local authority responds dynamically to internal and external requirements and is connected both across departments and with other governments, suppliers and citizens. Integration provides the ability to model graphically the organisation’s core business processes; reuse and combine existing applications in new ways; provide access to key data throughout the organisation; and collaborate with other employees in real time.
The UK landscape includes cities, villages, transport infrastructure and parkland. Local authorities contend with different geographic features and demographics that drive the particular needs of their region. For instance, in addressing social inclusion, a rural region may present broadband coverage challenges whereas in a metropolitan area, the challenge may be in terms of appropriate strategy and services. This article discusses the characteristics of the UK landscape and how that might impact on the choice of wireless technology and how services are delivered.
Broadband in the UK
The UK is demographically diverse with a relatively moderate physical environment.As of July 2004, almost 39 million citizens were in rural towns and countryside with the remainder in cities (See: UK National Statistics Office, 2001 Census).
Figure. 3. Rural/Urban population breakdown
As of June 2005, the UK had 13.5% broadband penetration per capita which placed it 13th on the OECD countries list and well behind some other European countries. Furthermore, penetration is largely concentrated in the urban and more densely populated regions with significantly less rural coverage. In supporting the government mandate to increase broadband penetration it is also necessary to ensure that rural coverage is increased.
Wireless technologies, in conjunction with wired infrastructure play a significant role in increasing broadband penetration. WiFi and the emerging WiMAX standards are making it possible to bring broadband to areas where it has not to date been economically viable.
The UK Landscape
Physically, the topology of the UK is relatively moderate with some hills, mountains, lakes and vegetation. The design and deployment of a wireless infrastructure, necessitates consideration of the region's physical topology early on so that decisions on type of equipment and where it will be physically located can be taken.
The Cybermoor Social Inclusion project in rural East Cumbria was established to promote social inclusion through ICT by providing PCs and broadband internet access to the community of Alston Moor. Due to the remoteness of the area, citizens have had to travel significant distances to access even basic public services. Cybermoor have extended their network using wireless technology and now the highest penetration of broadband in any rural area in England. The organisation has created 14 jobs and attracted at least 3 businesses to the area.
Metropolitan & Rural Deployments Compared
Wireless infrastructure is appropriate in urban areas where limited wired broadband infrastructure exists and where future demand cannot be accurately projected.
In rural areas it may not be economically feasible to deploy a wired infrastructure due to sparse population density, challenging terrain, etc.
When deciding on a technology and architecture in the deployment of a communications infrastructure one of the first questions will be what environment is it expected to operate in. The following identifies some of the considerations for wireless deployments in both rural and urban environments:
Characteristic: Infrastructure Equipment Rural: Masts may need to be erected as part of infrastructure with potential cost and planning implications. Alternatively, existing structures (owned or leased by LA) may be used. Urban: Street furniture such as lampposts may be used for fixing infrastructure equipment. A significant advantage of using lampposts would be ready access to a power supply.
Characteristic: Speed of Deployments Rural: Infrastructures can be quickly deployed to cover large geographic areas of low-density populations. Urban: Deployments can be implemented without the need to dig up roads, etc and with minimum disruption to existing infrastructures.
Characteristic: Standardised Technology Rural: Technologies deployed will be in line with established and emerging standards thus future-proofing Local Authority investment. Urban: Technologies deployed will be in line with established and emerging standards thus future-proofing Local Authority investment.
Characteristic: Cost Effectiveness Rural: It can be economically feasible to deploy wireless infrastructure to sparsely populated areas. Urban: It may be cost-effective to implement a wireless overlay infrastructure to areas where there is inadequate or non-contiguous wired infrastructure.
Characteristic: Tailored Deployments Rural: Deployments can be optimised for longer distances and designed around physical obstructions for location-specific usage. Urban: A wireless overlay infrastructure can be deployed for backhaul, last mile or client access as the situation requires.
Characteristic: Scalability Rural: Infrastructure can be scaled up and out to handle increased usage and greater coverage. Urban: Infrastructure can be scaled up and out to handle increased usage and greater coverage.
Wireless technologies perform differently depending on where they are deployed. Depending on whether the deployment is urban or rural, what usage models are anticipated, the coverage required, etc., it may be that just one technology or a hybrid solution is the correct fit to provide for optimal always-on connectivity.
The Nomad Wireless Forum aim is to develop the local government agenda for wireless in order to help local authorities make the right decisions when developing and implementing outdoor wireless broadband networks.
The Forum brings together stakeholders from around the UK, including representatives from local authorities, technology partners and academia, to accelerate the adoption of wireless Internet to support social and economic development and better-managed cities, communities and regions. The Forum is an environment to foster dialogue among key decision makers from all groups.
But we need your help...
In order for us to continue development of the Forum, we need your support and input, to identify your organisations’ needs and drivers, best practice and case studies focusing on the challenges local authorities face when deploying such networks. These challenges may range from; achieving buy-in of the concept internally; proving the business case stacks up; or understanding the technology choices available.
The Nomad Wireless agenda is focused on drawing out the tangible benefits that participants expect to derive from the take up of outdoor wireless broadband networks.
There has been successful participation in the Nomad Wireless Forum meetings so far, especially from leading technology equipment vendors, service providers, and systems integrators.
As part of an effort to further the dialogue and progress made in sharing win-win solutions we need to identify the champion local authorities that wish to drive this agenda forward and shape the wireless strategy for local authorities with Nomad Wireless.
Would your local authority be willing to play a pro-active role in the wireless forum over the next year and maintain close contact with the critical suppliers shaping this market within local government?
For more infomation: Contact Bharat Jain, Project Manager, London Connects E: bharat.jain@londonconnects.gov.uk T: 0208 921 5131 / 07951 206 055
The Nomad Wireless Briefing - September/October 2006
A briefing to discuss: Unwiring the Local Authority; Building a Partnership to Deliver Wireless Public Services; Planning for a Hybrid Technical Architecture; Future of the Forum - Nomad Needs You
A briefing to discuss: Wireless Technologies Supporting Business Value; Towards Transformative Government; Rural and Urban Wireless Solutions; Future of the Forum - Nomad Needs You
A briefing to discuss: Wireless Infrastructure – Choosing the Right Business Model; Wireless Technology Choices; Preparing for Mobility – Mobile Application Characteristics; Future of the Forum – Nomad Wireless Needs You!
A briefing to discuss: The Current Wireless Landscape; Wireless Technology - an Enabler of Shared Services; Wi-Fi and WiMAX for Beginners; Drivers for Wireless - Transferable, Scalable, Affordable, Replicable; The Digital Challenge.
