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Dubai, 4 Aug 2025 — FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN) in partnership with the World Governments Summit (“WGS”) today launched a joint report offering a bold vision for governments and public sector leaders seeking to enhance national resilience, improve service delivery and build citizen trust by improving efficiency.

At a time of increasing fiscal pressures and heightened citizen expectations, Efficiency Unleashed: Innovative Strategies in Governmental Operations reveals that only one in four citizens are satisfied with their government’s performance. Meanwhile, public sector organizations around the world continue to lag behind the private industry in terms of productivity.

Drawing from extensive research, real-world case studies from high-performing governments and expert insights on public sector transformations, the report presents a clear roadmap for performance improvement. It identifies three strategic levers for unlocking efficiency: dynamic deregulation and agile governance, radical optimization of operations and value capture budgeting supported by innovative financing.

“Governments face a complex mandate: to do more with less — and to do it faster,” said Antoine Nasr, a Senior Managing Director and Head of FTI Consulting Middle East. “This research shows that public sector productivity has evolved from being a ‘nice to have’ to becoming a critical driver of economic resilience and national competitiveness.”

Key findings from the report include:

• Public sector efficiency is vital for national economic performance. On average, government expenditure accounts for 32% of GDP.
• Governments are adopting more adaptive and outcome-based regulatory models. Tools such as principles-based regulation, policy labs and regulatory sandboxes are enabling faster policy innovation and real-time learning. Countries such as Denmark and the UK have demonstrated measurable results from these approaches.
• Artificial intelligence offers transformative potential for government operations. Up to 84% of repetitive service transactions across over 200 government functions could be automated. This would free up public sector capacity for more strategic work and enhancing service responsiveness. Examples from the UAE and Denmark highlight how process automation can deliver significant labor savings and reduce administrative burden.
• Citizen satisfaction varies across services. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development data show approval ratings of around 70% for sectors like healthcare, education and justice, but 60% for administrative services. This gap highlights the pressing need for  citizen-centric service design and digital innovation.
• Innovative financing tools are reshaping public funding. Governments are increasingly adopting value capture budgeting and financing tools, such as social impact bonds, blockchain-enabled digital bonds and green bonds, to fund services more transparently and effectively.

The report highlights that efficiency is no longer just a question of cost-cutting; it is a strategic imperative for governments seeking to be more resilient, responsive and citizen-focused. A cultural shift is underway in the public sector — one that embraces experimentation and development, rewards innovation, and redefines success not by process compliance but by outcomes that truly matter to people. With this approach, governments can meet today’s various challenges and build a more agile, inclusive and sustainable future.

Reem Baggash, Deputy Managing Director for Strategy, Content and Communications at the World Governments Summit, added: “Efficiency Unleashed is a call to action for governments globally to redesign their administrative and financial systems to match the pace of change and future needs. Efficiency is no longer a luxury, it is an imperative. At WGS, we remain committed to equipping decision-makers with the frameworks, data, and tools they need to build more agile, resilient, and impactful government models.”

The full report is available for download here: Link

About FTI Consulting
FTI Consulting, Inc. is a leading global expert firm for organizations facing crisis and transformation, with more than 8,100 employees located in 33 countries and territories as of March 31, 2025. In certain jurisdictions, FTI Consulting’s services are provided through distinct legal entities that are separately capitalized and independently managed. The Company generated $3.70 billion in revenues during fiscal year 2024. More information can be found at www.fticonsulting.com.

FTI Consulting, Inc. 
200 Aldersgate
Aldersgate Street
London EC1A 4HD
+44 20 3727 1000

Investor Contact: Mollie Hawkes
+1.617.747.1791
mollie.hawkes@fticonsulting.com

Media Contact: Helen Obi
+44 20 7632 5071
helen.obi@fticonsulting.com

Source: FTI Consulting, Inc.

Story Continues

This ride-hailing launch has many folks wondering, what gives? My answer: optics.

Recent chatter among some little birds suggests that the National Automobile Dealers Association is focusing its efforts on VW Group spinout Scout and the EV company’s plans for direct sales. The dealership industry group has opposed the direct sales model before. But unlike direct-sales adopters Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, Scout is attached to a legacy automaker with a long-established dealer network.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com.

Think back to the fall of 2023. Logistics company Flexport had captured the attention of Silicon Valley, in part because of founder Ryan Petersen’s fallout with ousted CEO Dave Clark and because of its acquisition of Convoy, the former freight tech unicorn that had just shut down.

Here’s an update. Flexport has now sold the Convoy platform to DAT Freight & Analytics. The terms were undisclosed, although the company said it had delivered a “massive return on investment for Flexport.” Reporting from Axios’ Dan Primack suggests that, yes, indeed “massive return” is an appropriate description.

Flexport never disclosed exactly what it had paid for Convoy’s tech, although reporting at the time put the figure at $16 million — a fraction of the unicorn’s previous valuation of $3.8 billion. Primack reported this week that Flexport sold the Convoy platform for $250 million.

Other deals that got my attention this week …

AIR, an Israel-based startup developing eVTOLs, raised $23 million in a Series A funding round led by Entrée Capital, with participation from existing backer Dr. Shmuel Harlap, an early investor in Mobileye.

LG Innotek, the components and materials subsidiary of South Korea’s LG Group, is investing up to $50 million in Aeva, acquiring an equity stake of about 6% in the U.S. lidar company. The investment is part of a broader manufacturing partnership between the two companies and marks Aeva’s push into consumer electronics, robotics, and industrial automation.

Aurora shared some notable progress in its Q2 earnings report. The autonomous vehicle tech company has three self-driving trucks operating commercially between Dallas and Houston, logging more than 20,000 driverless miles by the end of June. It is piloting driverless trucks on a 15-hour route from its terminal in Fort Worth, Texas, to a new terminal in Phoenix and is operating at night. CEO Chris Urmson told me what is next on his list.

Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging company The Boring Company plans to build a 10-mile “loop” that will connect Nashville’s downtown and its convention center and airport. Important side notes: This will be funded by The Boring Company and its private partners, which are not named. And this is the start of a public process to evaluate routes, which means work won’t be starting right away.

Ford plans to reveal more information about its upcoming low-cost electric vehicles at an event in Kentucky on August 11. And, as senior reporter Sean O’Kane notes, the company is talking a very big game.

Joby Aviation has signed an agreement with defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to “explore opportunities” to develop a new aircraft class — specifically, a gas-turbine hybrid vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft that can fly autonomously — for defense applications. The gas-turbine hybrid VTOL will be based on Joby’s current S4 aircraft platform. This isn’t a contract, per se. But it does mark progress in Joby’s bid to go to market in the defense and consumer sectors.

While Uber continues to partner with every autonomous vehicle company under the sun, Lyft is trying to make its own deals. Lyft said it will add autonomous shuttles made by Austrian manufacturer Benteler Group to its network in late 2026. The shuttles will be deployed in partnership with U.S. cities and airports.

Waymo plans to launch a robotaxi service next year in Dallas, and this time it is partnering with Avis Budget Group to manage its fleet of autonomous vehicles. In other Waymo happenings, two of its robotaxis crashed into each other at one of the company’s staging lots in Phoenix this week, proving that the company’s rapid expansion into new cities does not mean it has ironed out all the kinks. Waymo says it’s investigating the cause.

Chinese AV company WeRide received an autonomous driving permit from Saudi Arabia. The company holds similar permits in China, the UAE, Singapore, France, and the United States.

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana will join the Disrupt Stage for a wide-ranging conversation on the current state of AVs — and where the industry goes from here. TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 will be held October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco.

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will be the only fully-featured, independently operated sovereign cloud, backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances and legal protections. It will have no critical dependencies on non-EU infrastructure, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is operated only by personnel who are European Union (EU) residents located in the EU, subject to EU law.

Based on evolving customer requirements for digital sovereignty in Europe, we are adding EU citizenship to our hiring requirements for AWS European Sovereign Cloud employees operating the cloud. Our EU citizen personnel will work from EU locations subject to EU law, as before. We continue to offer customers more choice and control, so that they don’t have to compromise on the full power of AWS to spark innovation, drive economic growth, and strengthen cybersecurity protection.

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is designed to provide customers with an autonomous cloud that operates independently in Europe and for Europe. Replicating a broadly practiced mitigation mechanism that is established in EU institution and government hiring practices, operational control and access will be restricted to EU citizens located in the EU to ensure that all operators have enduring ties to the EU and to meet the needs of our customers and partners.

To assure independent operation of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, these new hiring requirements will apply to personnel who will have control of day-to-day operations, including access to data centers, technical support, and customer service.

As we make this change, we will continue to work as a blended team of EU residents and EU citizens, with all personnel working from EU locations, before gradually completing our transition to EU citizen operations for the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. We are committed to supporting any employees impacted by this transition, and redeploying builders who do not meet the EU citizen eligibility requirement into other roles within Amazon.

We remain on track to launch the AWS European Sovereign Cloud by the end of 2025. This initiative, which is backed by a €7.8 billion investment through 2040, represents our deep commitment to meeting Europe’s evolving digital sovereignty needs.

You can learn more about the AWS European Sovereign Cloud on aws.eu.