A simplified, secure digital government

This Australian government ministry brings together various departments and bodies that work closely together throughout the many levels of the country’s administrative functions. It maintains and works towards many complex objectives that, among others, ensure the Australia’s safety.

The Australian government department brings together some of the country’s most critical security functions. Its work requires the near-constant traffic of sensitive data, so security is paramount.

Pursuing similar digital transformation objectives as other parts of Australia’s public sector, the department wanted to improve its operational efficiency and productivity, mature services, and provide better end-user outcomes. As the number of devices and applications increased, this demanded a robust enterprise platform which could meet various workflow requirements, commencing with IT Service Management.

The organisation selected ServiceNow as the platform on which to manage its ITSM function. However, by pursuing a cloud-first strategy, it wanted the flexibility to run ServiceNow in a cloud environment. The department needed assurance that this met security controls at the PROTECTED data classification level for use by the Australian Government, and worked with Fujitsu to achieve this via the IRAP assessment process which Fujitsu had its service independently assessed against.

Fujitsu’s experience of delivering application and cloud services was required to meet the project deadlines and establish effective working relations with all parties. It delivered a repeatable industry standard platform which was able to be deployed within the department’s complex architecture whilst meeting its PROTECTED solution requirements. 

Fujitsu deployed an agile methodology, with iterative improvements dropped fortnightly. This helped keep stakeholders—including the IRAP assessor—engaged throughout the four month process to ensure timely delivery of all design and deployment components as well as the IRAP assessment report. Fujitsu was then able to stand up a minimum viable product, with a scheduled calendar of agreed improvements.

The feedback from internal users was positive, and after discovering the platform’s ability to automate workflows and produce external-facing service requests, the organisation invested in the Customer Service Management (CSM) capability. The department also became interested in other platform functions, including Application Portfolio Management (APM), Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) and Integrated Risk Management (IRM).

Overall, the organisation wanted to expand and leverage the new platform and provide an enterprise solution which is a key tool for the Department’s digital transformation journey, which also created an opportunity for the retirement of legacy applications and labour-intensive, paper-based processes.

Many users and teams are now able to create low-code applications of their own to simplify workflows and improve efficiency. For example, this has been used to digitise workflows associated, with rostering services, citizen-facing forms, and minor procurements.

Fujitsu delivered a simplified, secure solution that addressed risk and built trust. The solution leveraged the Microsoft Azure cloud platform architected by Fujitsu to ensure the delivery of an appropriately assessed PROTECTED solution. This PROTECTED cloud environment is a foundational platform which Fujitsu uses to deliver multiple highly secure PROTECTED solutions.

The choice of Azure meets the department’s as-a-service preference and comes with strict SLAs around uptime and availability. In fact, availability uptime SLA increased to 99.9% from 98.5%, and maintenance improved and matured to minimise planned downtime, reducing from hours to less than 30 minutes or, in many cases, to no monthly downtime. The solution also provides a base capability which can be leveraged further as the department continues its digital transformation journey.

The platform improved the user experience for 18,000+ employees and simplified IT management, providing a holistic view of operations and thus contributing towards IT and overall service maturity. It delivers automation to drive efficiency and provides the data to uncover fresh insight. Users can self-serve for a range of tasks, thereby reducing the pressure on the department’s service desk.

Fujitsu allowed ServiceNow to be used securely throughout the government department. What’s more, Fujitsu customisation enables a greater degree of functionality, including the use of mail services safely, a tailored approach to upgrades, support that is provided from a secure facility by personnel cleared beyond standard requirements as well as integration support with additional cloud workloads established as required.

Since the initial release of the PROTECTED ServiceNow solution, the department has been able to further expand its digitisation ef forts by automating various internal processes and transforming the end-user experience in the areas of procurement, IT operations management, and integrated risk management. All with the confidence that the highly sensitive data will stay secure and protected within the Fujitsu secure government solution.

“Fujitsu was able to deliver a very stable platform and assist in a number of challenges leading up to the go-live date. I would highly recommend Fujitsu,” comments a spokesperson at the department.

Fujitsu’s understanding of secure workloads has resulted in added support to the department to ensure that the service can be used according to the required security
parameters and architectural preferences. Additionally, the department is seeing ongoing price benefits through the establishment of a portfolio-based agreement and Fujitsu’s global partnership with ServiceNow.

The closeness of the working relationship and long-term partnership between the department and Fujitsu built whilst COVID restrictions limited face-to-face meetings, will help accelerate future projects. The engagement also brings the department in-line with similar PROTECTED projects completed by Fujitsu for other federal departments.