Cutting Government Bureaucracy: Microsoft Plans Big Investments in AI/Cloud in Europe
I’m convinced the one thing that bonds humanity is the consistently subpar digital experience we all receive from our respective governments and public institutions.
And I don’t think this is just my sentiment. In a recent survey project, we discovered that only 36% of Government IT Decision-Makers believe the colleagues they support are completely satisfied with their Digital Employee Experience.
Having lived in a few different countries, I’ve never encountered a government process or website that’s been straight-forward and tech-inclusive. My current home country, Spain, is no different. For all its wonders, Spain, like most places, is notorious for having an inflated bureaucracy. Most administration web portals look like they were written in FORTRAN. Entire buildings seem to exist just to stamp one piece of paper. And whatever your request is, you can be certain it will trigger a confusing if/then web of logic that quickly ascends into the metaphysical. It’s rumored that some processes were intentionally designed to never end. My friend received this message the other day: ‘Congratulations, your visa application was successfully launched into space and is now passing through a black hole at the edge of the Milky Way. Estimated time to approval: 7 trillion parsecs’.
But despite all this, things are looking up!
That’s because Microsoft is going to invest €2B in AI and cloud infrastructure in Spain. The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, also announced plans to invest €3.2 billion in Germany. Smith appears to be touring Europe right now, gaining popularity at a level just below Taylor Swift.
Back in Spain, the initiative could add an estimated €8.4 billion in GDP and create 69,000 indirect jobs. Spain is a wonderful country with plenty to offer, but much of it's younger talent has left to seek better jobs elsewhere. This investment could pay off big in more ways than one, and I can only hope the focus on technology investments in public-facing entities and governments continues to grow across the globe. It also seems like this is one of the last unchecked items on the list—first it was Digital Customer Experience (with the advent of mobile applications), now it’s Digital Employee Experience, and hopefully in parallel, it will be Digital Government Experience.
Since the time this news broke, my friend received an uplifting message from the Spanish immigration agency regarding his application: ‘Estimated time to approval: in 3 months or 7 billion parsecs.’
