Government Isn’t Ready for this Kind of Data Growth
A recent study from data management company Splunk revealed that 90% of government IT leaders don’t believe they’re ready for the volume of data headed their way. Among these leaders, under a quarter are even aware that the amount of data they’ll be dealing with could be three and a half times what it is now in just a few years.
One of the challenges that we see with our existing customers, and one of the main challenges for these agencies going forward is going to be managing more data from more sources, all with constricted resources. Many of our clients create interfaces with those that are providing data, but it’s an expensive and time-consuming process, making it only viable for the largest sources of data. Information still pours in from other sources, and organizations need processes in place to handle it.
In order for government agencies to handle this volume of data, they’ll need guidance from a well engaged Chief Data Officer. The position, which we wrote about earlier this year, is relatively new to the government and hasn’t had a legislative empowerment push in the way FITARA energized the Chief Information Officer.
While it’s important not to overregulate the Chief Data Officer’s position to a point that stymies innovation, having accepted and shared governmental best practices would be beneficial. Government agencies have a somewhat unique ability to share knowledge that can ease administrative burdens on both themselves and their citizens.
We’ve found that the best way to keep up with increased data flow is through automation. At the rate which data is growing and budgets have tightened, it’s not feasible to be able to handle increased volumes solely through staffing.
Intelligent automation can take care of all of your documents, but particularly the ones that don’t quite fit; the ones with handwriting on them or that have information in a different place each time you see it. Our software reads all the text on a document and determines what and where the important information on it is. From there it can be redacted to allow for online records access or indexed to a database as clean information in any format you want.
This is the time to be developing a plan, whether it’s through automation, shared capabilities with other agencies, or just properly empowering the Chief Data Officer. If you’d like to find out more about how our software can help, please reach out.
