City of Savannah embraces modern technology to enhance government services

Veteran IT leader guides technology strategy into the future

Nestled along the banks of Georgia’s Savannah River, the picturesque city of Savannah exudes Southern elegance with cobblestoned streets, moss-covered oaks, and historic architecture. Despite its traditional charm, the city is embracing the future of modern technology.

At this intersection of past and future stands Tim Moody, CTO for the City of Savannah. An experienced IT leader, Moody is leading the City on a transformative journey to modernize services for citizens and staff alike. Savannah will be celebrating its tricentennial in less than a decade, and Moody teases: “I often joke that my job as CTO is to keep the technology from looking like it’s 300 years old.”

“Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision survey has been critical in helping us identify areas of opportunity throughout the city. The survey provides great feedback on where we are currently functioning well and where we need to improve.”
– Tim Moody, CTO, City of Savannah

An unexpected detour into remote work

Jokes aside, stepping into the CTO role was no laughing matter for Moody. He joined the City in February 2020, a mere six weeks before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enabling a remote workforce became his immediate priority, a tall order in an organization that had not previously supported virtual work.

Moody and his team leapt into action and pivoted the entire City to remote work in order to maintain city operations in the midst of lockdowns. Telework has continued post pandemic, reflecting the success of the team’s efforts. “The greatest feedback I’ve ever gotten around telework was from one of the leaders of the city, who asked, ‘Are you still doing that teleworking thing?’ I said, ‘We are, and the fact that you didn’t know that means we’re doing a good job,’” reflected Moody.

It's lonely at the top

Pandemic notwithstanding, Moody faced the additional complexity of legacy technology and a legacy mindset around the role of IT, which was further complicated by a malware incident in 2018 that had shaken the confidence of the organization.

Determined to write a new modern chapter for IT and City Hall, Moody turned to IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group for external support and expertise: “When you’re the person in charge of making a technology decision at an enterprise scale that will impact thousands of employees, hundreds of thousands of visitors and citizens, that’s a lonely place. Having more voices, feedback, and ideas to help make a good decision is where Info-Tech has been invaluable to me.”

Getting the measure of IT performance

Moody’s first stop was Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic program, a comprehensive survey tool designed to assess internal stakeholder satisfaction with IT performance. By identifying IT’s strengths and weaknesses, the survey gave Moody the quantitative data he needed to guide his focus: “Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic has been critical in helping us identify areas of opportunity. The survey provides great feedback on where we are currently functioning well and where we need to improve.”

Having conducted the CIO Business Vision diagnostic several times now, Moody noted that the results are invaluable in supporting IT spending plans: “When budget season arrives, we can use the feedback from the Info-Tech diagnostics to help validate and justify the budgetary requests that we’re making.”

A collaborative leap forward with an ERP workshop

Modernizing the City’s technology infrastructure demanded change at an enterprise level. Rather than tackling specific technology needs department by department, Moody took a broader approach with the decision to deploy a new ERP.

Knowing that this enterprise-scale initiative would impact many departments across the City, he kicked off the process with an Info-Tech Workshop on ERP Strategy. Key individuals were brought together in a structured, facilitated workshop to discuss the technology, their needs, and the path forward.

Moody noted that the workshop participants had never collaborated in this way before: “People were thrilled. The way we handled collaboration in the framework of the Info-Tech Workshop was so beneficial – people really felt included. And that was critical to actually moving the project forward.” He added, “The Info-Tech Workshop methodology helps drive stakeholder conversations that are long overdue and that might be uncomfortable, so we can have real conversations about legacy technology, legacy organizational processes, and legacy positions in the organization.”

Accelerating the ERP journey with Info-Tech Consulting

Building on the success of the workshop, the City engaged Info-Tech Consulting Services to support their ERP vendor evaluation process. “We were able to bring so much forward from the Info-Tech Workshop directly into the consulting engagement. It expedited our ability to hit the ground running. That was a huge win right out of the gate,” reported Moody, who also noted the benefit of bringing Info-Tech in as a credible and unbiased third-party: “As an IT leader, if you demonstrate any kind of bias toward a technology or a vendor, that is very difficult to hide. People will notice and that’s a difficult thing to overcome.”

For advisory services on an individual level, Moody relies on his Info-Tech Executive Counselor, a dedicated advisor who provides guidance on key objectives and leadership challenges: “My Info-Tech Counselor has a wealth of experience. I was thrilled to have access to someone with that level of knowledge, depth of understanding, and passion for this job. She has a deep understanding of the challenges I face all the time.”

A modern city in the making

Reflecting on both the past and the future at the City of Savannah, Moody celebrates the strength of his IT organization today, built in part on the success of the telework initiative, which expanded IT hiring options: “We had a significant turnover rate for about two years. This year, we’ve had only one person leave. We’ve got the right team in place – they’re committed, they’re dedicated, they’re doing a great job.”

A strong team will be essential as Savannah looks ahead to exponential growth with massive developments from companies like Hyundai Motor Group, which is building an EV “MetaPlant” in Savannah. “It's going to completely transform the city. We’re trying to get ahead of that curve and make city services more modern and easier to access. We want to make our services better because we’re about to get an influx of attention and people. City services should be modern,” explained Moody.

Looking even farther ahead, Moody anticipates a point in the future when the City will be ready for emerging technologies like AI. In the meantime, he continues to lean on Info-Tech to support his current mandate: “Through our partnership with Info-Tech and their great wealth of research, methodologies, and frameworks, we’re able to approach the City with changes that are steeped in logic and experience – to put the City on a path forward, to invest in digital transformation, and to improve the services that the City provides to its citizens, guests, and businesses.”