Stephen J. Rohleder is group chief executive of the Health & Public Service operating group of Accenture, a global management and technology consulting and services firm. As an expert on improving business, health and public systems, he is changing the way enterprise-level social systems—from Medicaid to airport security and beyond—deliver services to ever-increasing numbers of people in a time of ever-decreasing public budgets. Based in Austin, Rohleder oversees the group’s work for more than 400 public sector, non-profit, and health industry clients worldwide. Since much of Accenture’s focus is on organizational efficiency and service improvements, we asked him to answer some questions on that theme.

Forefront (FF): As demographics change, service requirements evolve and every public expenditure is more closely scrutinized, every institution or program must increase its efficiency in order to continue delivering services and value. What are public sector organizations doing these days to try to operate more efficiently?

Stephen Rohleder (SR): While there is no “one-size-fits-all” model for efficiency in government, we have seen a number of proven approaches in the private sector that are increasingly attractive to public organizations facing tight budgets. One popular strategy, shared services, has helped businesses pare down costs while boosting productivity in the back office. It’s gaining traction lately in government, higher education and health care. An agency or organization might consolidate processes such as human resources, accounting or procurement to achieve economies of scale.

In Texas, the North Central Texas Council of Governments, the University of North Texas and UT Austin have all implemented shared service initiatives and they’re finding it’s helping to generate savings. We’re also seeing large Texas health-care providers trying shared services as they look for ways to boost efficiency to help control health-care costs.

Another approach, strategic sourcing, is about changing the procurement of goods and services from being a transaction-oriented activity and transforming it into a strategic approach. Strategic sourcing uses fact-based information on vendor selection and prices and captures ‘economies of scale’ – bulk discounts – by aggregating purchases that were previously more decentralized. We’ve seen organizations that have moved from an old-school approach to procurement save five to 15 percent in the cost of goods and services after trying strategic sourcing. For instance, we are currently working with Cook County, Ill., and the City of Chicago to improve procurement processes and help them capture tens of millions of dollars per year in savings.

FF: So government agencies can leverage initiatives that the private sector has been implementing for decades, in order to streamline and improve their processes. Do you have any examples of other ways that is happening?

SR: IT rationalization and consolidation is a big area. Government agencies are often decentralized, with multiple hardware and software applications. We’ve seen IT rationalization and consolidation reduce IT costs by 20 to 30 percent. And new opportunities to use IT more efficiently continue to emerge, with the move to cloud computing, the rise of data analytics and the growth of mobile tools and applications.

In Texas, we have helped a world-leading hospital to digitize its health-care records and also to use analytics—helping them track and manage patient outcomes more closely.

FF: Yes, health-care delivery is one area where a revolution is clearly under way. No matter what happens in the political and legal arena, there is a critical need to reduce the growth of health-care costs. Telemedicine and electronic records are steps on that journey. Where do innovative ideas like these come from, not just for health care, but for other sectors as well? And what can government agencies do to spur more innovation?

SR: There’s a lot of truth in the saying “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” Public sector leaders can learn from the first movers. We worked with New York City to roll out its “311” customer service center in 2003, which provides a single number for citizens to connect with information on more than 4,000 topics and services. Now it is expanded into 311 Online.

And citizens aren’t just seeking information on services, they’re now providing input that is helping to shape city services. The system has handled more than 135 million calls and is hugely popular because it is such an efficient means of government-citizen interaction. The model is spreading to major cities around the country and, indeed, around the world. In fact, we just worked with Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to launch 1746, a single number for millions of people to call for all municipal requests—and more than 10,000 are already using the service each day.

FF: The number of users is likely to grow exponentially with the approach of the 2016 Olympic Games. What other avenues to innovation are available to agencies?

SR: In addition to following the first movers, agencies looking to innovate can also tap into expert networks as a way to share ideas. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) shares innovation in government and highlights what’s working among early adopters. For instance, NASCIO is closely following the opportunities offered to state government by cloud computing, while also helping states understand the security aspects of moving data to the cloud.

Universities and companies also play an important role in highlighting the best opportunities for government to adopt new technologies and other forms of innovation. Every year, Accenture co-sponsors two conferences at Harvard University, one on shared services in government and education, and the other on human services. Innovators get together to share their experiences to help agencies in other states.

And here in Central Texas, a number of business leaders are getting a chance to draw on our professional capabilities to help UT Austin. UT President Bill Powers recently asked me to lead a 13-member voluntary Committee on Business Productivity. Its members include representatives from Dell, Boeing and other entities. We are working on developing recommendations to improve the university’s business processes, focused on opportunities for improved efficiency.

FF: As large as UT is, and as multi-dimensional as many of Accenture’s clients are, just getting a sense of how they operate can be a challenge. Then there’s the challenge of finding ways to change operations that have developed over the years. How can large organizations and agencies—which may be bureaucratic, with many layers and complexities—stay innovative, nimble and open to change?

SR: You can start by trying to build a culture of continuous improvement and movement forward—a culture that is rooted in a strong desire to always keep “one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow.” One way we do this at Accenture is through leadership development programs. Every year we pick 30 to 40 of our high-performing senior managers to participate in a seven-month-long program, including two in-person workshops. They divide into teams and focus on “action learning” projects, where we give them some of our biggest and hottest business issues to solve.

We talk a lot about “stewardship” at Accenture and how it’s one of our core values—and I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate stewardship than by investing like this in tomorrow’s leaders. Through these types of programs, management creates stronger touch points with our rising stars and we can prepare them with the right skills and abilities to lead our organization into the future. Learn more ways Accenture is investing in tomorrow’s leaders at the McComb's School of Business. That’s how you build and encourage an innovative and change-friendly culture—an environment where anyone can be a leader and the power resides within a person, not with a position.