Big Data and information management are being given far higher priority in the Australian public sector that has been historically, says Bryan Stibbard, Area Vice President, Australia and New Zealand at CommVault.

At the FutureGov Summit Australia 2013 in Canberra last month, Stibbard spoke to senior government IT leaders, sharing expertise and gaining experiences as he led intimate round-table discussions on ‘Making Big Data Smart Data’.

Stibbard shared, “Public sector agencies are not just talking about big data as a volume of data. They’re now talking about how they can make that volume of data more useful and relevant.”

In the Australian Federal Government space, CommVault’s role has included transforming businesses that were simply backing up data to actually extracting business value from the data they store, Stibbard told FutureGov.

In addition to this, governments are also tackling issues around prioritising, classifying and appropriately storing unstructured data, he highlights.

Stibbard and his team advocate that agencies understand their data first and then determine what to do with it, setting policies and directions accordingly. “During this period of innovation, government organisations can look to innovative technologies and solutions in the marketplace,” he urges.