Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeAvePoint CEO's BlogFive Ways Your Agency Can Engage Better and Modernize with AvePoint Citizen Connect

Five Ways Your Agency Can Engage Better and Modernize with AvePoint Citizen Connect

Last week I had the opportunity to represent AvePoint, a Gold Sponsor at the latest Microsoft Dynamics Asia Partner Summit in Bali, Indonesia. It was a great event to get the scoop on new Microsoft Dynamics-focused product news, technical training, and tools as well as take advantage of networking opportunities with like-minded Microsoft partners.

AvePoint and Microsoft have been along a similar trajectory in that we’ve both seen the transformation of business – moving from very distinct, siloed applications and platforms to the desire for connected systems that bring all of this information together to enable collaboration from anywhere, at any time.

AvePoint Co-CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Tianyi (TJ) Jiang presents a session entitled “Explore New Frontiers with Dynamics ‘xRM’” at the Microsoft Dynamics Asia Partner Summit.
AvePoint Co-CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Tianyi (TJ) Jiang presents a session entitled “Explore New Frontiers with Dynamics ‘xRM’” at the Microsoft Dynamics Asia Partner Summit.

With our history in SharePoint, enterprise content management, and collaboration – we’ve made this transition into enabling collaboration across the entire Microsoft technology stack, be it on-premise, in the cloud, or through a hybrid model. It’s clear in today’s business landscape that people expect to have the same experience in the office as they do with technology they use while off the clock – they want simple yet robust business applications that meet their specific needs. They don’t want to waste time trying to customize an eminently feature-rich platform to fit a specific need, because there’s no time for that. They want a targeted business solution that solves the problem immediately.

I had the pleasure of leading a session at the summit entitled “Explore New Frontiers with Dynamics ‘xRM’”. In that session, I unveiled how our AvePoint’s Innovative Business Solutions lead this charge into the new world of work by giving customers, citizens, and staff a voice – from any device at any time – while modernizing stale, paper-based business processes. In doing this, we help organizations improve citizen and customer satisfaction by improving access, communicating better as well as responding faster and more efficiently.

I see two overarching themes when speaking with company leaders around the world about providing this level of targeted, customized solutions: they need to engage, and they need to modernize.

It’s vital to open the lines of communication across all channels with stakeholders and respond to inquiries with ease. It’s imperative to empower people to be more involved by granting visibility and building trust. Organizations also constantly need to improve the quality and speed in which they deliver services. It’s time to retire inefficient, manual, and paper-based systems and processes. It’s our mission to give you the tools you need to face mounting workloads and help you avoid delays.

Microsoft Dynamics Asia Partner Summit in Bali, Indonesia
Microsoft Dynamics Asia Partner Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

We are seeing tremendous momentum right now in the public sector space with cities large and small looking to bring engagement and transparency into the 21st century. With the help of Microsoft’s CityNext initiative, today’s technology innovation is helping solve tomorrow’s problems now. I was excited to show off one of our Innovative Business Solutions, the AvePoint Citizen Connect platform. Citizen Connect uses Microsoft technologies – such as Office 365, Azure, Azure Media Services, BizTalk, Dynamics, Lync, Project, SharePoint, and Yammer – to help government organizations and NGOs modernize their operations today in order to better plan for tomorrow. Citizen Connect is comprised of targeted business applications that meet specific needs of today’s public agencies:

  • Modernizing and centralizing service delivery – It’s time to automate case management and eliminate the communication breakdowns inherent with trying to cobble together decades of legacy channels like physical mail, email, telephone, and fax with today’s social media platforms and mobile applications. Our E311 product delivers quality service and improves citizen satisfaction by providing you a portal for logging and tracking services that are accessible by you as well as citizens anywhere, anytime, and from any device.
  • Encouraging engagement and opening communication – Many of you are familiar with the concept of Town Hall Meetings – typically in-person meetings where you can meet directly with the leaders of your city and town, learn about new projects, and give your feedback. In today’s always-connected society, it’s hard to find the time to make it to a physical meeting. So why not create a portal where you can open dialogue to everyone, garner new insights, and centralize information no matter where your citizens are located? Our Town Hall solution allows you to build trust by sharing developments and gathering input in a central communication portal. Further, you can gain a much more accurate understanding of sentiment with polls, surveys, and social media listening tools instead of just going by who is able to physically attend a meeting.
  • Increase transparency and open data – More than ever, constituents are demanding to know in real time how projects and initiatives are going. Taxpayers like to know their money is being well spent, right? Our Project Transparency application provides you with fast, efficient services to monitor multiple ongoing projects and share that information in a digestible manner with the public, fueling their growing interest in open data and fostering trust.
  • Mobilizing workforces – It’s important that workers in the field are able to stay connected, informed, and agile to respond to requests from citizens. With Mobile Workforce, you can implement a comprehensive mobile strategy to drive efficiency and deliver results by diagnosing and repairing inefficiencies in real-time with detailed performance analytics. This way, field staff can truly be empowered to provide the highest level of service without feeling as though they are disconnected from their home base.
  • Paperless government – Many agencies have heard over and over again the notion of paperless government, using technology information workers already use today – that way user adoption will increase and subsequently improve document sharing, collaboration, and efficiency. The problem many governments face today is that they’re trying to modernize in this fashion, but they have so many existing systems and disorganized information architecture that they don’t know where to start. Our Document Management System centralizes and standardizes this management throughout the entire document lifecycle, from creation to retention and eventual deletion.

We’re seeing many applications for this in the commercial sector, and we’re actively looking into building customized solutions in this area as well. I encourage you to visit our website to learn more about how we’re taking our foundation in enabling collaboration to the next level by not only providing robust, scalable platforms, but delivering targeted customized solutions you can roll out today.

TJ
TJ
Dr. Tianyi Jiang (TJ) co-founded AvePoint in 2001 and has served as the organization's Chief Executive Officer since 2005. TJ is responsible for overall strategy and direction of AvePoint, which includes product innovation, investor relations, and business development. He is focused on delivering value to customers, partners, shareholders, and the AvePoint team, every day. A recipient of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in New Jersey in 2010, TJ received both B.S. and master’s in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University, and a Master of Philosophy and PhD in Data Mining from Department of Information Systems, Operations Management, and Statistics, Stern School of Business, New York University.

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