Section 7: Information & Information Technology (I&IT) Plan

The AGCO relies on digital platforms to deliver accessible, reliable, secure, and customer-centric services to Ontarians. In line with the Government of Ontario’s Digital Service focus and commitment towards new digital practices and technologies to deliver simpler, faster better services to Ontarians, the AGCO will continue to prioritize the development of a Digital Strategy to guide, inform, and govern its digitalization efforts. This Digital Strategy will be tightly integrated into the operations and long-term planning efforts focused on how it can strengthen the priority of being a Modern Regulator, ensuring a deep understanding of its stakeholders through a focus on Service Excellence and fostering a People First culture that develops and empowers a dynamic workforce.  

The planning and implementation of a Digital Strategy requires a multi-year effort and investment that will ultimately set agency-wide digital objectives, determine capability gaps, and define key initiatives and enablers fitted onto a maturity roadmap. As the Digital Strategy and creation of a three-year digital roadmap takes shape, efforts continue within I&IT to set foundational technology and operational building block capabilities in the following areas that will accelerate the AGCO digital journey.  

Business Process Optimization and Performance Measurement  

Strategic alignment and accountability are key components of organizational success. The AGCO recognizes this and has further demonstrated its commitment to success by establishing an enterprise-level Performance Measurement Strategy, led by the Business Optimization and Insights branch. The Strategy intends to increase the AGCO’s capacity for evidence-based decision making, while enabling it to show progress towards its mandate. A key component of the AGCO’s Performance Measurement Strategy is its Balanced Scorecard. The AGCO Balanced Scorecard hosts a set of enterprise-level performance measures and outcomes that represent key focus areas of the agency. The Scorecard facilitates enhanced monitoring of these keys for AGCO, to support evidence-informed decision making in fulfilling its continually evolving mandate.

Enterprise Data & Analytics Program Implementation  

The AGCO recognizes that data is a key pillar supporting its risk-based approach to regulation and the support of digital business. The Enterprise Data and Analytics branch is developing a Data and Analytics Strategy, including an actionable analytics roadmap to evolve processes supporting the development of data channels, management, and governance of data to support the AGCO’s vision of becoming a modern, evidence-based regulator with data-driven decision-making.  

Cybersecurity  

The AGCO will continue to implement its cybersecurity roadmap and has already implemented significant controls to monitor unauthorized network and system access to complement phishing and social engineering attack controls. Continuing our investment in people, process, and technology, the Cybersecurity Program has introduced advanced email security protection to add artificial intelligence and machine learning to email protection to complement a robust end-user phishing training offering. The implementation of a third-party Security Operations Centre and Security Information and Event Monitoring will decrease the likelihood of a successful attack and reduce the time to react and contain an attack, should it occur. AGCO will continue to invest to reduce the possibility of successful cyber attacks, protect personal information, and increase the response and recovery capabilities of AGCO.  

Digital Platforms and Journey to Cloud  

At the centre of AGCO’s digital-first approach is the iAGCO platform. The platform provides online services for its regulated sectors. To ensure alignment and integration of iAGCO and other digital products into the overall portfolio, a digital product management approach is being adopted. The AGCO will plan and manage core business systems through Digital Product Planning and Digital Product Delivery teams that ensure customer focused systems are available in a timely, cost-effective manner using agile delivery methodologies and roadmaps that are aligned to long-term strategic business needs.  

AGCO is modernizing legacy systems and infrastructure into available, flexible, and scalable cloud environments as a foundational step for the Digital Strategy. AGCO successfully retired its AS/400 legacy system after 20 years of operations, retiring unused applications and migrating required data and business functionality to modern platforms. AGCO continues to evaluate on-premise applications and will retire, move, or re-platform business applications to modern flexible cloud-based platforms.  

Strategic Portfolio and Digital Strategy Management  

As I&IT continues to become a key enabler of many of the AGCO’s key initiatives and operational capabilities, it is vital for I&IT to ensure continued alignment of both divisional and overall organizational finite resources to execute and support its business strategy. In addition to the development of a Digital Strategy, ongoing work will need to continue to ensure that the organizational digital journey and maturity is guided, managed, and adjusted as necessary based on current government and organizational dynamics and priorities. This will result in the positive evolution of its digital portfolio, featuring current innovative and forward-thinking approaches and alignment to digital trends.  

 Along with a digitally ready workforce who possesses the required skillsets, data literacy, and aptitude for the use of technology in this new digital reality, the combination of strategic planning and focused/prioritized execution will serve as the catalyst for the AGCO to adapt and flourish in a new digital reality.