Regional and municipal governments and large public organizations are striving to deliver higher levels of service, but are challenged with flat or decreased funding to support their efforts. One solution is to use the vast stores of data available to gain a better perspective to identify opportunities to deliver services more efficiently, and engage stakeholders with open data initiatives to create innovative programs – in effect becoming a smart city. A framework approach to apply advanced analytics to these floods of data provides a roadmap to achieve these aims, but city IT organizations are often limited by staff size, skill and budget, and are unable to implement the framework on their own. Cloud computing and software as a service can provide the means to quickly acquire data-driven decision-making capabilities that support smart city initiatives, putting advanced services within reach of virtually any size city.