Building future ready governments - Transformational lessons learned from a global shock
The IBM Institute for Business Value, in cooperation with Oxford Economics, surveyed 635 government leaders in 44 countries who were in positions of organizational authority during the pandemic to understand how specific behaviors and attitudes adopted during the pandemic influenced levels of preparedness for shock-level events in the future.
From its origins in late 2019 until May 2023, when the World Health Organization declared the end of its pandemic phase, COVID-19 was an extraordinary stress test for governments around the world. It revealed strengths and weaknesses of organizational response and resilience in ways that will be studied for years to come.
Through the innovation and investment spurred on by the pandemic, governments entered an era of growth in functional capabilities and organizational transformation. In retrospect, the accomplishments made by governments during the crisis were recognized and appreciated by many citizens. In fact, a 2023 survey of 19 countries reported that a median of 68% of citizens thought that their country did a good job in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.
In the US alone, COVID-19 relief laws enacted in 2020 and 2021 provided about $4.6 trillion of funding for pandemic response and recovery—a historic governmental commitment to manage and mitigate a shock event without precedent.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, many governments recognize that, despite progress made, they are not as prepared for the next round of future shocks as they should be. To find out what these leaders are doing to improve resilience and readiness, the IBM Institute for Business Value conducted a survey of global government leaders. Survey insights focus on the actions and investments made to improve resilience, as well as mindsets and attitudes toward organizational transformation.
The survey captured candid responses to questions about the functional capabilities of governments in the context of a global shock event, as well as organizational culture, strategy, behaviors, attitudes on trust, and technology strategy.
A variety of analytical techniques supported our hypothesis that maturity in a set of core functional capabilities led to better performance during the pandemic and greater preparedness for future shocks. When we isolated different groups of governmental organizations based on performance, the comparison revealed startling differences as well as valuable insights for government leaders as they develop their capacities to respond to a range of potential shock events.