By Rob O'Brien

Public sector agencies need to urgently coordinate and integrate their various egovernment functions through cloud computing, according to a recent report.

According to IDC Government Insights public sector organisations in the Asia Pacific region faced renewed financial pressures because of the global financial crisis and an increased demand for service delivery.

The report Looking Ahead: Articulating Cloud Competencies for the Asia/Pacific Public Sector highlights trends and concerns regarding the adoption of cloud computing in the public sector.

“In general, the Asia/Pacific public sector is still apprehensive about the adoption of cloud computing especially in agencies that handle sensitive information,” said Gerald Wang, Senior Market Analyst at IDC Government Insights Asia/Pacific.

“Most of the initiatives today are still at an experimental stage as the public sector tries to determine the return on investment (ROI) and weigh the risks involved in the adoption of cloud computing technologies."

Mr Wang said that governments should take “an active change management stance to address the people and process aspects of cloud implementations”, which included looking at traditional workflows and ways to address greater inter-agency coordination.

The report said that the global financial crisis had enhanced the cloud computing option as public scrutiny and accountability had stretched IT budgets of government organisations, which were also under pressure to raise service standards and productivity.

“Public sector agencies will need to define their own set of business requirements for cloud computing solutions,” Mr Wang said.

“This means they have to explore and gather distinctive proficiency and awareness towards building a specialised enterprise-grade cloud services model that fits the unique environment it serves.”