Dissecting the Public and Private Sectors: ”Have To” vs. “Want To”

What else drives the public sector to apply technology to solve its information issues?

"Avoidance of pain," said Steve. "If people complain about something enough, the public sector agencies will do something to avoid those complaints. There are plenty of Congresspeople who care what their constituents feel. They hear the pain." More pragmatically, the agencies have day-to-day issues to cope with, too. "If (constituents) are sending e-mails or calling off the hook all day long, the agencies have to hire people and spend resources. They WILL look for the path of least resistance to fix the problem."

And the problem often has to do with the relative exposure the organization suffers when requests for information retrieval can't be immediately met.

"Destroying a record is illegal, no matter who you work for," Jan pointed out. "But the reasons it's illegal can be different." In the private sector, the watchdog may be the SEC, or privacy overseers such as HIPAA, or (probably more frighteningly) the lawyers for the company that is suing you, as in the case of legal discovery. In the public sector, though, the governance IS the government, and the ramifications of destroying a record that is part of a FOIA request can be a visit from the Department of Justice. And you don't want to mess with those bad boys.

Because it's the way they are accustomed to doing "business," government agencies naturally keep good records. It is a fairly recent phenomenon in commercial business to have that level of oversight and governance. So in this particular bout, the public sector is ahead of the business world.

"Public sector organizations are constantly forced to justify their decisions," explained Jan. "Why did you do that? What were the decisions that led to that action?"

Congressional panels and parliaments around the world love asking questions like that. "Explain to us why this decision was made." CSPAN is on 24/7 because of just that kind of inquiry.

Dropping the Shoe

I asked both Jan and Steve what I considered a pretty controversial question, and was surprised to learn that both had basically the same answer. Considering that government agencies and their civilian partners had no competitive or market-driven pressures to do so, I wondered aloud whether they would go to the trouble and expense of automating their practices if they didn't have legislative mandates forcing them to. In other words, if they didn't have to, would they?

Here are the short versions of their answers:

Steve: "No."

Jan: "No."

The longer versions of their answers deserve some space: "Most of them wouldn't," said Steve. "But it comes down to individuals; there are some people who really care about their roles, and will fight to get things done. But there's also apathy."

Jan said: "No. They do have a reason to think about survival; agencies CAN be shut down. But it's not as imperative as in the private sector. In the private sector, you live and die by how well you perform. You have paychecks to cover. But it's not quite as clear-cut for government agencies. They get money handed to them, really."

"The IRS had a five-year modernization plan that fell so far behind that they changed it to a 10-year modernization plan" said Steve. "It's currently a 15-year plan."

Steve continued: "We have as a customer a government agency that—three years later—is still working on their implementation, and they're quite happy with the pace. I'm accustomed to four-month implementations (in commercial companies)."

"The private sector is used to rapid change," agreed Jan. "But in the public sector, change is very much a threat to people. You can't go into a government agency and say ‘Buy this product and you will get 30% efficiencies and reduce your staff.' That's the LAST thing they want! They might lose their job! So there is great resistance to the ‘efficiency' argument. You might be able to say ‘If you can achieve efficiencies of 30%, you can redeploy staff.' They might listen to that. Whereas in the private sector, if they can get 30% efficiency and reduce overhead, they'll say ‘Absolutely! Let's go for it!'

"Basically, when you address the public sector, you have to understand what drives them," explained Jan. "You can't talk about profitability, or efficiency or reducing staff...it has to be about their FOIA needs, or their ability to do congressional inquiries, or how to be more responsive to constituents. They are overloaded; there's a lot of work going on. And they do want to reduce workload...just not so much as you have to get rid of people!"

Steve, as I already pointed out, agreed that the public sector isn't normally motivated to spring into action...but it can happen: "There are times when a survival motivation can make them move a lot quicker...like if their program might be cancelled. When NASA was in danger of having the Hubble telescope program cancelled, they came up with very innovative ways to extend the life of that program," he said. The more common motivation, Steve said, for government agencies to embrace technology comes down to dollars and cents: "You guys claim you need a billion dollars to continue. Well, you're only getting $800 million...figure it out." Some do and some don't.

Under Pressure

"In government, information management is a proactive function," stated Jan Rosi. "The public sector is always driven by legislative requirements. Because they're part of the government, they have to adhere to laws from the start. With a mandate such as FOIA, it's just a part of the way they do business. It always is there."

Jan was making the case that public sector organizations are somehow more comfortable—at least more accustomed to— meeting regulatory demands and responding to congressional inquiries, etc., and this makes information management a more organic part of their lives.

If the public sector "has to" and the private sector merely "wants to," doesn't it make sense to pursue the public sector as more or less low-hanging fruit? "Yes," said Jan, "and we do focus on the public sector for just that reason, but the private sector is also now being driven by regulations and compliance requirements, such as SOX, and so they too are now in the ‘have-to' category in many ways.

"With private companies, the hope is that it won't happen..." and they'll deal with it when it does. "This makes private sector organizations more reactive than proactive. ‘Oh, we have to go back and get all these e-mails together—how are we going to do that?'"

In commercial organizations, it's all about forward motion...businesses make a deal today, and it's history tomorrow. The new regulations, such as SOX and more stringent e-discovery requirements, force a different level of reflection onto business.

Jan agreed that things like e-discovery requirements and Sarbanes "are putting that kind of pressure on the private sector now." Are commercial organizations stepping up to the challenge? "It's like insurance...you take out insurance hoping you never have to use it. And if you could get away with it, you wouldn't pay for it. Being prepared for discovery is like that."

And the unspoken implication is there are people willing to take the gamble.

The Final Word

There is one final difference that I learned during these conversations between the public and private sectors. Steve Papa and I were just about finished when he brought it up: "Government agencies have this basic need to serve ALL constituents equally. So something that improves service for just one class of constituent without improving others is not embraced aggressively. If, for example, you require a computer to get the advantage of a particular service, it's not popularly accepted by government agencies because not everyone has easy access to a computer. Or if there is a capability that, say, people with disabilities can't use, the public sector would rather hold everybody back than alienate the minority group. Or imagine a tool that ‘visualizes' data, but it doesn't help people who can't see. It goes against their equal-access standards, so it will probably not be implemented. They'd rather stick with the old way."

I'm not sure sticking with the old way will always remain an option. But I'd like to think that the kind of motivation behind that decision will remain with us for a long time.