• Government
• Drivers
• Challenges
• Solutions
• Legal
• Finance
• Education
• Retail
• Health Care
• Managed Security Service Provider
• Industry networks

Challenges

Achieving greater operational efficiency

There is a constant pressure to provide better services, shorter response times, and new ways to communicate with the government.

At the same time, these services must be offered in a streamlined fashion, while avoiding excessive costs and complexity.

Budget pressures

Despite the fact that a wider range of e-services is being offered to citizens, businesses and other government agencies within and outside national borders, there are fewer people and IT resources to deliver these services. Every year governmental agencies face more pressure to cut down costs at central, regional and local levels.

Strict government-wide security standards and practices

Governments must be prepared to face a much wider range of risks than a typical business – everything from natural disasters to terrorist attacks and espionage. To adjust to these risks, governments have strict security standards and practices in place. Citizens' privacy must be protected while allowing information access to those who need it.

Regardless of the higher security requirements, government agencies need to collaborate in a secure environment. Some connections between agencies are permanent by nature, whereas some need to be created rapidly on the fly as needed. This means that the underlying security and networking infrastructure needs to be both flexible and easy to manage.