Local Government Software - Why Adoption Rates are Increasing

August 21, 2020

Too often plagued by the operational inefficiencies and ongoing maintenance of homegrown or on-premise legacy systems, local governments, no matter their size, can reap significant benefits from a local government cloud solution. 

So what exactly is its intended purpose? And what benefits can it provide?

Local government cloud software functions as a centralized data management system, providing all of the necessary tools to efficiently manage financial and administrative operations, and to help tackle the most common citizen issues with ease. 

Faced with growing pressures of shrinking budgets, changing demographics, and heightened citizen expectations for digital engagement, local government agencies are increasingly looking to move away from their legacy systems and/or paper-based processes, as Gartner’s research shows

Citizens have come to expect the same online experience from government services as they receive from commercial business - an experience achievable through digitization, and local government software.

What is a Cloud-Based Software?

There are many available software options for local governments - either on-premise or cloud-based - though for many agencies, a move to the cloud is an easy choice; adoption is, for many, seen as inevitable given its significant benefits, especially at times like these.

Cloud-based software, or more generally, cloud computing, is defined in Govloop’s guide as technological resources and capabilities that are delivered on demand outside of traditional on-premise solutions. With the cloud, computing power is no longer constrained to a physical server or desktop, and agencies benefit from the ability to only pay for the resources they use, and to scale with demand, something that on-premise legacy systems can’t offer. 

Although cloud-adoption in the public sector has been slow to catch up relative to other industries, adoption rates are growing, especially at the local level. Gartner reports local governments now spend 20.6% of their IT budgets on cloud, and that this number continues to grow as adoption barriers, mostly around data security and governance, are knocked down. 

There are many enticing outcomes of a transition to the cloud, but largely, the significant appeal to smaller agencies is in the ability to scale cloud resources -  a welcomed benefit for smaller organizations that may be hindered by tight budgets and limited resources. 

So, when scoping out a software solution for your government body, what should you expect from cloud-based software? 

Of the utmost importance when looking for a solution is security, scalability, and ease of use for citizens and staff: the solution needs to uphold the highest-level industry security standards, scale to meet changing system demands, and work to speed up and simplify citizen interactions with government.

Given the number of cloud-based software options now on the market, it’s important to consider what will best fit your government’s budget and needs. 

Clariti offers a scalable local government cloud-based solution with the tools your organization needs to improve transparency and enhance the citizen experience. 

E-Government’s Critical Role in 2020

Clariti is hosted on the world’s leading cloud platform, Salesforce, and offers a comprehensive data management system for permitting, licensing and enforcement. The solution includes everything a local or municipal government agency needs to efficiently serve their constituents, from a configurable application framework to a letters generation engine. Ultimately, the platform empowers government agencies to function seamlessly with an industry-leading toolkit. 

Clariti provides all of the necessary tools for a government agency to efficiently manage operations and build citizen and industry trust; and is the trusted choice of three of the largest ten cities in North America to best serve their communities needs.

Listed below are some of the many benefits agencies can expect from cloud-based public sector solutions, and the tools offered by E-government services to achieve them. 

Benefits of E-Government Software 

  1. Build trust with citizens and industries by enabling more efficient interactions around regulatory and compliance-based processes. 
  2. Make processes and services more efficient by getting rid of time-consuming, outdated processes with a Community Portal, an effective interface between residents, businesses, agency, staff and supervisors; and move away from paper document correspondence with online document generation tools.
  3. Easily meet growing demands for citizen services by streamlining processes and automating workflows so everyone and everything is more efficient. 
  4. Achieve cost-savings by ridding of expensive in-house infrastructure, and moving to a cloud-based Platform; and by transitioning to a digital, searchable database. 
  5. Improve collaboration and decision making across departments with accessible, real-time data in a central database. Maintain and access inventory at any time, from any location, and make data-based decisions with customizable Reports and Dashboards.
  6. A cloud-based solution allows for innovation and adaptability where agencies can easily keep up with the near constant changes to regulatory and compliance requirements. 
  7. Mobile accessibility enabling online and offline functionality for aspects such as regular recurring inspections and one-off inspections. 
  8. Improve transparency with process automation so citizens have full visibility of the permit/ licensing process, and are automatically notified of next steps.
  9. Mapping Capabilities and location-aware data made accessible to automatically schedule/ map / assign daily work orders for government employees such as technicians or inspectors.
  10. High degree of configurability that allows you to tailor the solution to best fit your needs; adding items such as custom fields, custom forms, record lists, email templates, etc.
  11. Comprehensive Financial Capabilities to enable complex integrations with any web-enabled debit machine or point of sale (POS) printer; and the ability to work with various payment gateways to accept different payment methods such as cash, credit card, cheques/e-cheques, and automated clearing houses (ACH) over the counter. 

Clariti offers all of these features which you can learn more about here.

For many local agencies, the benefits of a cloud-based software solution, as is evident by the climbing adoption rates, are becoming too important to ignore. With increasing pressures from citizens demanding improved services, and growing pressures on existing systems as paper processes fail during times like these, local governments are quickly realizing the potential, and the need, for a cloud-based solution. 

When local governments choose to implement a cloud-based software solution, they forgo outdated and resource-draining paper processes, and any need for on-premise infrastructure that is costly and time consuming to maintain. Simply put, local government software provides a one-stop shop for managing complex citizen issues: it enhances citizen engagement; provides a central, accessible database to improve data accuracy and promote fact-based decisions; and saves a ton of frustration. 


For more information, or to schedule a demo of our product, please contact us. 

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