Kelly Zheng's Insights

Corporate & Shared Services

Revamping the Roadmap to a Smarter and Resilient Shared Service Model

Government services are made up of different departments and agencies all working towards a common cause. Many of the institutions often feel siloed and independent, yet as Paul Glover, the President of Shared Services Canada says, any service that you interact with in the federal government, if it's digital in some way, then Shared Services Canada (SSC) has something to do with it. They make government services run and in the process, link many of the departments and agencies. We essentially provide IT and technology-based services to all federal departments and agencies. This includes networks, hardware and software. The individual …

8 December 2022 Article Public

Kelly Zheng

Smart Cities & Infrastructure

Ensuring Investments in Smart Infrastructure Deliver Maximum Value to Citizens

The pace of technology in our modern world means that organizations at all levels and in all sectors constantly need to move forward or they will be left behind. This is particularly true in the public sector and at the municipal government level. It is often said that municipal governments are closest to the people, but in order for that to be all the more accurate, municipal governments need to embrace the technological advancements that so many of their citizens are engaged in daily. Many of them do that and do it very well. But in a broad sense it …

7 December 2022 Article Public

Kelly Zheng

Defence, Security & Justice

Building Capacity and Mobilizing Technologies to Foster Community Safety, Well-Being and Inclusivity

Ensuring the safety of citizens The safety of every city is of paramount importance, and this is particularly the case when it comes to looking after the most vulnerable. Emergency services like police and ambulance do what they can, but sometimes they are stretched and don’t have the ca…

23 November 2022 Case Study Public

Kelly Zheng

Smart Cities & Infrastructure

Building a Sustainable and Resilient Future through Smart City Planning

Most people, irrespective of where they live, want their lives to be enhanced by all of the technologies that are available, yet it is often the smaller and more regional places that seem to get overlooked. The Town of Bridgewater, on the south shore of Nova Scotia, was determined to not be left behind. Leon de Vreede, the Sustainability Planner within the Community Development Department of Town of Bridgewater, says that despite their meagre population of 8,600, for a decade or so they have been undertaking innovation related initiatives particularly in the field of energy and climate.

23 November 2022 Case Study Public

Kelly Zheng

Corporate & Shared Services

Using Centre-Led Approaches to Drive More Value from Corporate Services

The main purpose of a centralized approach is that the “central team directly delivers. There is a standardized strategy with central management of spending, data and information.” This could mean that it could become “very hierarchical, inefficient and costly, with a lack of flexibility and agility.” This could make it hard to “meet the needs of unique business units.” In a decentralized approach, “it is almost the opposite. It’s easier to meet the need of unique business units and results in faster decision-making” but at the same time, there is a “lack of corporate policy standards, higher costs and it …

30 September 2022 Article Public

Kelly Zheng

Corporate & Shared Services

Adopting an Enterprise Approach to Shared Services - Benefits, Challenges and Next Steps

In simple terms, the SSC exists so that “no other department needs to think about anything; we just take care of everything.” They are not quite there yet, but essentially “we are a common services provider, and we want to be taken for granted.” In other words, “we aim to enable most of the government’s 45 large departments and agencies to shift to the use of common IT systems.” In total, that means “half a million users across all government departments and agencies.” They best way to the achieve this for the SSC is through the use on an enterprise …

30 September 2022 Article Public

Kelly Zheng

Corporate & Shared Services

Leadership and Workforce Management: Shaping the Next Normal

From a procurement perspective, “we had to work really quickly with vendors and had to make emergency purchases. We also had to do things a lot faster than normal, making some people uncomfortable.” However, in a way the pandemic came at a good time for the organization. “Less than a year before the pandemic, we switched out our desktops for laptops.” At the time it was a big change that was very disruptive in itself, “but it ended up making a real difference.” There were some working-from-home practices already in place, but for most staff it was foreign territory. “So …

16 August 2022 Article Public

Kelly Zheng

Corporate & Shared Services

Procurement Transformation: Integrating New Engagement Approaches to Ensure Supplier Diversity

A large federal government, like the Government of Canada, is involved in a vast array of activities and processes, many of which affect and impact the lives of its citizens. Some of these services affect citizens in direct and obvious ways, whilst others are more indirect and less known. One of these indirect services – which is no less important – is the field of procurement. It may not seemingly impact the lives of citizens on a daily basis, but Clinton Lawrence-Whyte, the Director General of Procurement Assistance Canada within Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), says that procurement is …

16 July 2022 Article Public

Kelly Zheng