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Deloitte-Salesforce Suite Aims to Help COVID-19 Recovery

Deloitte's new GovConnect software suite, built on the Salesforce platform, is meant to help governments set up contact tracing programs, manage business reopenings and support remote work, among other things.

In normal times, the new software suite from Deloitte — GovConnect, which was built on the Salesforce platform — would be sold as a means to help government do its core work better. It has tools for case management, call center operation and public health information exchange.

But in the age of COVID-19, the virus is what it’s all about. So Deloitte is launching GovConnect now as a tool to help governments track the spread of the disease, perform contact tracing, engage businesses as they reopen and support more public servants working remotely.

"Now, more than ever, it's critical that state and local governments have a technology platform that allows them to manage the recovery process while also helping enable their employees to get safely back to work," said Dave Rey, Salesforce president of public sector business, in a statement. “The solution can be configured and customized to meet state and local government’s specific requirements and provides an open platform for integrating with existing public health assets.”

The core idea is to help governments gather together the information necessary for allowing economic activity to resume while avoiding a resurgence of COVID-19 cases that would lead to more deaths and a longer recovery period. That’s a tightrope act playing out across the world right now, with different results in different places — including significant variance between American states.

GovConnect represents a move toward productization for Deloitte, which has made its name as a consultant and provider of services. The company has, however, offered products for the public sector before, such as the PublicEDGE platform.

Salesforce is also widely used in the public sector for its customer relationship management functions.

Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.