Route Fifty Report: “With government technology increasingly a team sport, Route Fifty partnered with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers to see how government leaders perceive collaborating across state and local agencies and jurisdictions. Our hope is by getting a pulse on the perceived opportunities for—and barriers to—partnerships, government leaders at all levels will be better able to understand the spaces most ripe for collaboration, the most compelling arguments for working together, and the key impediments that they will need to overcome. Route Fifty’s independent research arm, Government Business Council, deployed a survey in September 2018 to a random sample of state and local government employees. 304 respondents completed the survey. 65 percent of respondents identify as ‘elected/appointed officials’ or ‘executive salaried managers.’

We found public sector officials are excited about IT collaboration bringing greater cost efficiency, additional insight on best practices and improved productivity. While purchasing hardware and software licenses off common contracts appear to be low-hanging fruit and particularly of interest to smaller jurisdictions, there is also strong interest in a wide variety of other services. Local government officials responded they are as interested in exploring backup/disaster recovery and cybersecurity contracts and services. Although state and local government leaders are very receptive to collaborating around information technology, many are unaware of the availability of state contracts and services. Additionally, when they think of collaborating, they tend to stick to their own: states want to work with other state agencies, while local leaders favor other local counterparts. Finally, many are not considering the state CIO as a potential partner. Ultimately, this uncertainty around state contracts and the role of the state CIO is an opportunity to demonstrate the value of partnerships with the CIO among government leaders at all levels…”