Making a Case for Big Data in the Public Sector
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Government Readiness
57% of survey respondents believe the government is ready for big data. Only 10% of survey respondents said they rely on robust analytics and data processing to make informed decisions. -
Use-Case Scenarios
32% of respondents said they use insights from data to improve day-to-day operations while 19% obtain limited insight. Another 19% have not adopted big data but would like to. -
Big Data Challenges
The biggest challenges cited by public-sector respondents include not understanding the benefits of big data (60%), management support and clarity on value (59%) and the workforce's lack of skills (57%). -
Roadblocks
According to survey respondents, funding (46%), the fact that it's not an agency priority (44%) and lack of leadership (44%) prevent agencies from adopting a big data solution. -
Big Benefits
71% of respondents said the increased ability to find critical information is the biggest benefit of big data, followed by improved efficiencies and decision-making (68%) and timely decision-making (56%). -
Data Issues
According to survey respondents, the biggest challenges in leveraging big data include disparate data across the agency (46%), managing a multitude of schemas (20%) and increased collection of unstructured data (16%). -
Agency Requirements
Survey respondents said what they require the most from big data solutions includes consistency and standardization of data (65%), providing access to information (44%), collecting data from various data sources (44%) and verification of data (43%). -
Application Builders
Resources (55%), costs (53%) and skill set (53%) are the biggest challenges with application development, according to survey respondents; 54% of respondents use both government personnel and contractors to build applications. -
Data Crunching
18% of respondents said it takes about one day to aggregate data from multiple sources. For others, it is a longer process: about one week for 16% and about two weeks for 11%. Only 7% said it takes less than one hour. -
Value Proposition
39% of survey respondents said the opportunity to write once and publish everywhere is imperative; 35% said they do not do this, but would like to while 15% do not see the value.
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Why Metrics Matter to the Channel Big data is changing the way government agencies store, manage and collect data, but they cannot rely on structured data to meet their goals, according to a recent survey from government niche network GovLoop and enterprise NoSQL database specialist MarkLogic. Like commercial businesses, public-sector agencies need to capture data from a variety of sources, including unstructured data such as email and social media, to turn it into actionable items. But GovLoop, asked "Is the government ready for big data?" The majority of survey respondents said yes, but they still face major challenges and roadblocks, ranging from buy-in by the leadership to a lack of needed skill sets. This is where government agencies can leverage consulting and outsourcing services to help them build a case for big data as well as develop a data and analytics strategy and platform so they become an integral part of the agency's big data strategy. They also will find the low-hanging fruit before scaling out to help build a business case for big data. A few successes early on can help drive adoption. Here is a look at the survey's top findings.