Advanced Public Sector Partners
Forging Strategic Public-Private Tech Partnerships

2020 was indeed a year that no one could have foreseen! The COVID-19 crisis brought an unprecedented upheaval to sectors worldwide, and the public sector was no exception. Traditionally reliant on legacy IT infrastructures and paper-based manual processes, the public sector had to swiftly pivot online and break down its conventional barriers to continue delivering services to its citizens. On that front, leading-edge technologies, such as the cloud and automation, proved to be the much-needed fuel to keep the wheels turning for public sector agencies.

Now, there is no turning back! Public sector agencies increasingly realize the significance of digital solutions in delivering benefits to their citizens. IT modernization and tech adoption are thus the front and center of their plan of action today. Taking note of this, even IT/software companies are also keeping a weather eye on this paradigm shift to leverage it. However, it’s an unchartered territory for both parties; while the public sector, on the one hand, is novel to this technological arena, not every IT/software company, on the other hand, is typically accustomed to doing business with the government sector. That’s what makes building public-private strategic partnerships a hard row to hoe. Fortunately, it is in this crucial aspect where Advanced Public Sector Partners cements its cornerstone.

By setting exemplary public-private sector partnerships in the state of California, Advanced Public Sector Partners has been carving out a niche as an ideal consulting partner for both public sector agencies as well as IT/software companies. What’s making the firm a cut above the rest is its inventive consortium operating model. Elaborating on the same, John Kilakowske, president and CEO of Advanced Public Sector Partners, comments, “We have contractual agreements with several former executive officers of the state. The former State CIO of California, for instance, is a consortium partner of ours. Leaning on the expertise and experience of such nonpareil public sector executives, we are able to offer tailored and quality consultations that help establish enduring business partnerships between IT/software companies and public sector agencies,” Kilakowske shares.

Notably, Advanced Public Sector Partners delivers the technologies to public sector agencies as a packaged offering— via a business process-as-a-service (BPaaS) delivery model. It, in turn, enables public sector agencies to adopt ‘change’ without having to stick with a single solution provider. Meanwhile, it also allows tech companies to work around the strict service level agreement (SLA) requirements of the public sector, thereby being able to cater to a hard-to-reach client base (public sector) with ease. A win-win situation for both the parties involved.

By setting exemplary publicprivate sector partnerships in the state of California, Advanced Public Sector Partners has been carving out a niche as an ideal consulting partner for both public sector agencies as well as IT/software companies

How Advanced Public Sector Partners recently fostered collaboration between IT/software vendors to cater to a public sector agency in California presents a perfect testament to the firm’s potency. Recently, Advanced Public Sector Partners was shortlisted by a state agency in California to implement e-governance services for the public. The firm subsequently brought three software solution providers together to accommodate the extensive requirements of that project. The first company onboarded for the project TekYantra, owned by Swampna and Sreekar Peddi, was a WordPress-as-a-service vendor that provides content management services for websites. The second one was SimpliGov—managed by VP of Public Sector, Troy Bare—an online form and workflow automation software provider to develop smart interactive e-forms with automated workflows and e-signatures. And the third one was Elastic, Inc, a company that provides Site Search, which allows advanced diagnostics and automated dashboards so that the customer can customize the information they need without learning an advanced BI tool. Thanks to Advanced Public Sector Partners’ flexible BPaaS approach, the state agency could seamlessly find the right technology partners for each of their needs and successfully dispense e-governance services to interact with the general public all from the department website more cost-effectively. This would normally be impossible for the government agency to do on their own.

Kilakowske attributes this phenomenal consulting success to its consortium operating model. This innovative model is, in fact, as Kilakowske shares, is inspired by the open-source business model of Red Hat, one of his former employers. Kilakowske (also a USAF Veteran) cites, “Having spent the lion’s share of tech career in an open-source business environment, I am comfortable in such a business model.” Needless to say, this approach also fits perfectly when it comes to boosting outcomes for a sector that has mostly stayed tech-averse due to lack of consultants/companies that do not understand their niche requirements.

Riding on the coattails of such competencies, Advanced Public Sector Partners stands out as the go-to consulting firm for public sector agencies in California. While the firm’s business model is indeed an ideal one that can be embraced across the nation, Kilakowske believes that there’s much to be done in the state, and they haven’t started thinking about expanding to the other states yet. However, Advanced Public Sector Partners would look to pull similar consulting firms to their consortium and expand their reach and synergy. “We are already in discussion with California’s state officials, and they are very interested in expanding to the neighboring states to build a stronger alliance, from a security standpoint,” Kilakowske enthuses. “We are currently aiding them in comprehending how to do that,” he concludes.