Last year best illustrated the changeability of the world we live in – almost overnight, the challenging health situation reversed almost all principles of action and required us to adapt quickly and with quality. The last decade has brought more serious economic crises, natural disasters and other unpredictable events, such as cyber-attacks and thefts with the help of technology. In the new circumstances, those who are most resilient have coped best – companies and institutions that have used technology for their transformation, so they can quickly adapt and act in unforeseen circumstances when situation requires it. The current situation calls for the rapid digitalization of the Governments in order to meet the challenges – both today and in the future – and it is important to build a resilient system that will work in all circumstances.
That is why today state administrations around the world are building their key infrastructure in a way that gives them resilience in carrying out activities regardless of the conditions – economies must remain productive and citizens secure and safe. Geostrategic, operational and cyber resilience, as well as resilience to natural disasters are fundamental. The latter is currently the most current, and technology can play a key role, i.e. ensuring that management is prepared and responds to the effects of various disasters. Appropriate technologies for disaster and crisis management will improve communication and coordination between different bodies and spheres of government, and the construction of a system that will deal with disaster forecasting and analytics will enable more informed data-based decisions. The government must strive for resilient systems that will function during disasters, taking into account that it can continue to provide services or launch new ones without hindrance. Platforms for identity management, data and information management, application and service management, process management, and infrastructure management must be resilient to ultimately enable resilience to public administration.
Cloud computing has prompted companies and organizations around the world to rethink how they use IT to achieve their goals, and governments are following suit. Adopting cloud services brings speed, scaling and economic benefits. With the help of cloud services, government can create scalable, interactive portals for citizens, collaborate more easily, and deliver more data to citizens, while reducing costs and ensuring the security, resilience, and reliability of cloud services. In working with government, Microsoft is focused on achieving government resilience by building a platform that will make key components fully resilient to the various risks to everyday business: security (using the most secure platform on the market, with the highest standards of security, transparency, compliance and privacy, and system security), individual and organizational identity management, data and information management in a resilient environment, resilient applications and services, and resilient integrations and infrastructures.
In response to the current crisis, but also to increase resilience to future crises, the European Commission, the European Parliament and EU leaders have reached an agreement on a recovery and resilience plan (RRF) that paves the way out of the crisis and lays the foundations for a modern and more sustainable Europe. It is the largest stimulus package in EU history, worth a total of 1.8 trillion euros, with the aim of helping rebuild a greener, more digital and resilient post-pandemic Europe. The leaders of the European Union have envisaged flexible financing mechanisms, and the task is to implement reforms and projects through national recovery and resilience programs that will enable a faster exit from the current crisis and a better and faster response to unforeseen circumstances in the future.
The current crisis should therefore be accepted as an opportunity because digitalization can enable government to manage more successfully, work remotely, better coordinate and cooperate, and provide existing and design new services for citizens – to the satisfaction of citizens who want fast, quality and efficient services.
