Only two percent of state and local governments have a complete big data strategy.

That’s despite one in three surveyed agencies indicating that their data set has grown too big to analyze with the current processes and technologies in place, according to a report published Monday by MeriTalk, The State and Local Big Data Gap, which comes on the heels of MeriTalk’s study on federal agencies and big data.

That chasm exists even though participants recognize the value inherent to data management. Indeed, the top 3 benefits include: improved overall efficiency, speedier decision making, and a “greater understanding of citizen needs.”

But 39 percent of respondents said their agency is just learning about big data and how related technologies might benefit them — while 44 percent have not yet started talking about the topic.

[Related: John Loonsk, MD, on the policy and implementation challenges to achieving better outcomes via big data.]

The report listed significant challenges to managing large amounts of data as storage capacity, speed of analytics, analysis, distribution and sharing, search/retrieval, talent, capture, and visualizing as well as an understanding of who, exactly, owns the data. 

“State and local agencies say they need to double their data storage and computation power and triple their personnel to successfully manage big data,” the report’s authors explained. And while some are working to close the IT gap, only about 25 percent are tackling the need for more personnel and those that are have thus far spent time training existing IT employees for big data or educating senior management on the benefits. 

So it follows that just about 60 percent of respondents noted that they are analyzing the data they collect, while less than half are harnessing it for decision-making purposes — perhaps because “57 percent say their current enterprise architecture is not able to support big data initiatives,” according to the report.

Big data projects, however, are not likely to get any easier since 97 percent of respondents expect their data to grow by an average of 53 percent in the next two years.

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