In our last post, we provided an example of how one commercial organization, Wal-Mart, has effectively used analytics to improve its operational performance. Today, we will provide some examples of government departments and agencies that have implemented analytics and explain how they are using analytics to improve their service to citizens.

How are government agencies already using analytics to improve their service to citizens?

Analytics can be a powerful part of department or agency leaders’ toolkits.  The right well-supported numbers make for highly compelling stories.  Many government agencies are already unlocking the power of analytics.

• The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is conducting an informatics program.  This initiative analyzes data contained in electronic health records for hundreds of thousands of patients.  VHA physicians are discovering the medical-treatment factors that most influence the effectiveness of medical care.
• Many agencies are using analytics to detect and combat fraud.  Key examples include the U.S. Postal Service Contract Fraud Program, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Risk Management Agency's Crop Insurance Program, the Defense Financial Accounting Service, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Veterans Health Administration.  Analytics allows agencies to discover patterns of behavior that most often indicate the occurrence of fraud.  Suspicious transactions can be referred to human investigators for closer examination.  The USDA alone has saved taxpayers more than half a billion dollars.
• Several agencies are employing analytics in the human-resource domain.  Patterns in retirements and resignations have been discovered.  This supports increased effectiveness of workforce planning.

These agencies have started down the path to becoming analytics-driven organizations.  An analytics-driven organization appears transformed compared to its peers.  Many leaders are mistakenly tempted to focus first narrowly on the technology aspects of analytics.  Achieving the benefits of analytics involves cultivating an organizational culture within which information drives decisions and actions.

Throughout this blog series, we will explore aspects of applying analytics to reducing cost and improving performance in government. Making the journey to becoming an analytics-driven organization may appear to be a formidable task.  However, the payoff is compelling.  Analytics-driven organizations — exemplified by Wal-Mart — achieve results that are dramatically superior to their peers.  Such an opportunity cannot be ignored, particularly in the present fiscal environment.

Coming up next

Join us next time as we discuss the future of analytics in government.

Let us hear from you

Please share your comments here.

Mr. Treworgy has over 20 years of analytics and project management experience. In addition to his primary focus on United States departments and agencies, he also has carried out work for a number of government organizations in Europe and Africa. A thought leader in the area of strategy and information analytics, Mr. Treworgy publishes frequent articles, presents often at conferences, and has provided expert witness testimony on several occasions, including at a joint Senate / House of Representatives hearing. He graduated with a BA in Economics from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard University.

David Treworgy (david.treworgy@us.ibm.com)

Greg Greben is Vice President and Market Leader for Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO), IBM Global Business Services, US Public Sector.

2 comments

Austin

Hello, I am currently a student studying public administration and I have been reading through your blogs and I would like to comment that you have an interesting line of blog posts about using data analytics to help with allocating resources so that agencies can be more resourceful and effective in carrying its missions. I have always thought that it would be impossible to measure outcomes for the public administrators since you put money into the program first to see the outcome that differs from for-profit institutions, which in this case we can use Wal-Mart, and that output would be money: a much easier way to determine a successful product/service offering. You brought forth a couple of examples that show a practical way to measure quantitatively on the services that the public offers. I would imagine that it would still bring about an immense amount of resources to be able to pull off these different analytics. Resources such as the beginning phase where you would have to scope out what it is that you want to analyze so that you are able to identify where these data sets might be sitting in. The data might be unstructured, others would be in a qualitative format and perhaps the worst would be that the data is dirty. It would be difficult to organize and bring in for the table(s) that you would want to work with. Then for the items that do not currently exist, there would be the issue of how you might want to add this data in, where it should be stored, etc. All of this could call in for a complete restructuring of the entire system. Then there may be an issue with data governance for data between agencies. Do you find these things to be true concerns and challenges as public administrators?

04/09/2012 - 02:28

John Forrester

From the other side of the Atlantic in Italy the Government has tried to suggest strongly that analytics need to be used as a best practice. Some have taken to heart and tried to follow the reccomendations to begin to understand who does what and why as a basis for planning new services more effectively and efficiently. Others have ignored the government. Given that central government can no longer allocate resources like once upon a time, local government has to begin to understand how it can do more with less (I imagine the same is true in the States). Some have already started here others are ignoring the issue for now.

10/17/2012 - 05:42

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