Kitchen sink digital service: Why local governments must diversify technology vendors

Some local governments rely on one company to do all things digital.

We call this “kitchen sink digital service.”

An example of one government technology company doing most or all of this includes:

• Websites (and content management systems)
• Meetings (particularly meetings management)
• Customer relationship management (311)
• Newsletters
• Permitting
• Chat bot
• Accessibility add-ons
• Custom design/development services

The problem

When local governments outsource digital services to one company, a number of problems occur:

• Budget : You pay more for a suite of tools that you won’t fully use.
• Technology lock-in: You’re entrenched into one company’s suite of tools. In the long run, it will be extremely difficult (and expensive) to extract yourself from this.
• Weakened security: Because you rely on one company, there’s only one single point of security failure. If that company is hacked, all of your digital services could be compromised.
• Product mediocrity: No company can do everything great, so you get “good enough for government.”

The solution

To avoid kitchen sink digital public service:

• Buy the best tool for the specific job. This ensures you get technology solutions from vendors that do that one thing really great. It also lets you easily change vendors for a specific service if you’re not satisfied with the product or service.
• Integrate the best tools with one another. Great tech tools work well with one another by design. Because they aren’t hodge-podge services from one vendor, they have to build seamless integrations.
• Spend less overall. The combined cost of individual tech solutions will most likely be less than kitchen sink solutions. Why it may seem like you save money because you only pay one invoice, it’s more likely you’ll pay much less going with multiple, best-in-class solutions.

A best-in-class digital services marketplace

ProudCity Marketplace integrates with a variety of products and services.

We do this because we want local governments to know their best and most cost-effective technology options.

These include general and government-specific offerings:

• Department of Civic Things (content, communications)

• Stripe (payments)
• MailChimp (newsletters)
• Constant Contact (newsletters)
• + more

By integrating with best-in-class digital products and services, the local governments we work with get better and more affordable technology solutions.