Maurer says one best practice cities and counties should follow is to truly identify what the local agency’s current and future tech needs are. “Have a strategic plan and use procurement to implement that plan. Too often it is the other way around, with an inflexible procurement process dictating what’s possible for your agency. This leads to 21st century cities using 1990s technology.”
Maurer thinks buying technology should be a group effort. “A tech-buying team should be a collaboration between the utilizing department, the IT department and legal.” Another key player on that team is the procurement operation. And those procurement players need to be multi-skilled, Maurer believes. “On the buyer side, the most critical skill to have is cybersecurity knowledge. Government agencies are common targets for hackers and ransomware firms, and the risk increases with each new application. Just by necessity, security is most important. However, it’s also important to understand value, and this is where Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) skills are imperative.”
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