Tag Archives: Department of Commerce

Focus on Citizen Experience Results in Improved Customer Satisfaction

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The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Federal Government Study 2024 found that consumers' satisfaction with government services is at a seven-year high. In fact, the government experienced its largest gain in citizen satisfaction over a four-year period--a net 9.9 percent--since the ACSI began conducting these studies.

This rise in satisfaction is a result of a long-term, cross-administration focus on improving customer service to citizens. The bipartisan 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act was passed during the first Trump administration and enforced during the Biden administration. This law required agencies to modernize websites, digitize services and forms, accelerate the use of e-signatures, and adopt shared standards and services. Both administrations made customer experience core goals of their respective President's Management Agenda. The Biden administration issued a customer experience executive order that provided additional guidance and mandates for improving the quality of services the federal government delivers. Continue reading →

Department Spotlight: Department of Commerce

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The Department of Commerce's mission is to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity for all communities. With 13 bureaus, it serves as the voice of business in the Federal Government and spurs the growth of quality jobs in communities across the country.

Commerce plays a huge role in innovation and advanced computing. Commerce is the department that oversees the efforts of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to provide guidelines around secure and equitable technology use. Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) leading climate science research and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) work to protect American IP are also housed under Commerce. Continue reading →

How Blockchain Unlocks Government Challenges

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Blockchain is best known as the power behind digital currency, but the base technology has so many more applications. At the root of blockchain is its ability to record the transactions of assets. This visibility is key to the digital transformation of government services and operations.

Supply Chain

The most obvious use of blockchain may be in the movement of goods, providing a record of "ownership" of a specific asset and the path it has taken to get to its present location. The digital tracking removes the challenges of moving paperwork (either hard copy or electronic) between organizational boundaries, enabling a digital token to serve that same purpose.

Just because the ledger is "public" does not mean it is not secure. The U.S. Department of Defense is using blockchain to provide a single source of truth for tracking materials. It has proven to optimize processes and reduce costs, enhancing government readiness. Continue reading →

Planning Toward FY 2022 – A Peek at the Federal Budget

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The Biden Administration recently issued its request for 2022 spending. This practice is really more of a policy effort than actual budgeting, but serves to illustrate administration priorities to inform agencies as to what is likely to get approved in the final budget. The 2022 budget request has a number of IT-specific priorities, starting with the funding of the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) at another $500 million for fiscal 2022. This would be in addition to the $1 billion that was invested as part of the American Rescue Plan Act--money that helped support the ongoing effort to digitize government services and operations.

The $58.4 billion in IT spending includes marked increases in the IT budgets of the Treasury Department, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. NASA and the Department of Commerce had small reductions to its IT budgets.

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A Short History of Shared Services…and What’s Next.

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Shared Services in government is nothing new. The idea began in the 1980s with the consolidation of payroll and some other administrative functions. In the '90s the focus was on creating entities that could provide common business functions across government and, in that effort, become a cost center.

The 2000s saw the rise of the term 'Line of Business' that looked at common business functions across government to identify opportunities to transform, streamline and share. The Obama Administration looked specifically to IT as a shared service, releasing the Federal IT Shared Services Strategy that provided federal agency chief information officers and key stakeholders guidance. This guidance focused on the implementation of shared IT services as a key principle of their efforts to eliminate waste and duplication, with the intention to reinvest in innovative mission systems.

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