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App Development Rising as U.S. Commerce Department Faces Tech Challenges

Joshua Hoffman
June 9, 2015

Business process management technologies have emerged as vital application development platforms for organizations that need to deploy new solutions rapidly. Accelerating app development is becoming a priority in the public sector, particularly in departments that are required to prioritize IT innovation to support everyday operations. This is evident in the U.S. Commerce Department, as the organization has embraced IT innovation to a degree that exceeds many other government segments, Washington Technology reported.

While most government departments have been striving to find ways to reduce costs while improving IT functionality, the Commerce Department IT budget is increasing.

"Application development features are the key differentiator for modern BPM solutions."

Understanding the tech challenges facing the Commerce Department

According to the news source, the U.S. Commerce Department has a discretionary budget of $8.8 billion in 2015, and approximately $2.1 billion of those funds have been set aside for IT spending. Much of this funding will be spread between three segments of the Commerce Department - the Patent and Trademark Office, the Census Bureau and the NOAA. These three entities are all facing unique technological challenges, butcommonalities exist. One majorchallenge emerging across the Commerce Department is a need to get a wide range of apps and services out to end users leveraging diverse devices.

The development challenges facing the U.S. Commerce Department have lead to significant interest in agile methodologies that streamlinedevelopment and help organizations accelerate app refresh cycles. In the end, this focus on innovation is combining with the budget increases across the Commerce Department to revolutionize the type of solutions that agencies within the institution invest in. Instead of having to search for the least expensive solution possible, agencies within the commerce department have an opportunity to go all out and purchase best-of-breed solutions.

What to look for in best-of-breed BPM solutions

Modern BPM tools do more than just help you automate and optimize processes. The technology also provides tools for low-code app development, allowing business users to quickly create or customize apps so the technology that employees leverage is well integrated with their everyday processes. Using BPM as a central cloud application development platform can free organizations from restrictive app architectures and enable them to align technological and operational capabilities to maximize value creation.

As the BPM industry has evolved, public sector organizations striving to find best-of-bread solutions need to look beyond traditional automation features and look at application development features as the key differentiator between legacy and modern solutions.