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The state of Oklahoma has partnered with IBM (News - Alert) in a bid to cut costs and improve quality of service to citizens. With IBM’s data analytics and new delivery models, the state of Oklahoma will be saving $15 million over the next five years.

By analyzing business processes and consolidating IT projects, the company will be helping the state gain significant savings in software licensing and technology maintenance costs which in turn will result in an expected IT budget recovery of 30 percent.  

“At a time when we all have to learn to do more with less money, IBM has been instrumental in identifying and prioritizing IT consolidation projects for the state of Oklahoma, at the same time allowing us to invest in new services for our residents,” said Alex Pettit, chief information officer, state of Oklahoma, in a statement.

Pettit also said that IBM brought not only its extensive public sector services experience to help create the initial business case for this project, but also worked with participating agencies to verify that the new technology environment would improve mainframe service and reduce costs.  

As part of the project, IBM helped the state to understand the challenges of providing IT services to various agencies with diverse requirements for data management and federal reporting. 

The agreement ensures that the delivery of technology services is more effective and more consistent. Moreover, the new infrastructure gives each agency more control over the quality, performance, and support of their technology environment. Ultimately, the consolidation of five mainframe platforms also yielded significant savings in costs and lower lease costs.

 “Successful governments are finding ways to reorient their structures, information technology and policies to address the needs of their citizens and businesses,” said Bruce Ross, general manager, IBM Global Technology (News - Alert) Services, North America.

Ross noted that IBM can tap into proven strategies for successful public governance, including insightful leadership and effective use  of technology as well as the company’s offerings around analytics, shared services and collaboration.  This, he said, enables real transformation that benefits the public and government alike.