Digital information makes up 51 per cent of an organization’s total value, however, 60 per cent Indian businesses are struggling to effectively manage and protect their digital information, finds Symantec Corp's State of Information Survey.
Five ways to protect your business data
· Focus on the information, not the device or data centre: With BYOD and cloud, information is no longer within the four walls of a company. Protection must focus on the information, not the device or data centre.
· Not all information is equal: Business must be able to separate useless data from valuable business information and protect it accordingly.
· Be efficient: Deduplication and archiving help companies protect more, but store less to keep pace with exponential data growth.
· Consistency is key: It is important to set consistent policies for information that can be enforced wherever it is located… physical, virtual and cloud environments.
· Stay agile: Plan for your future information needs by implementing a flexible infrastructure to support continued growth.
According to the survey, from confidential customer information and intellectual property, to financial transactions, organizations in India possess massive amounts of information that not only enable them to be competitive and efficient – but also stay in business. Business data in Indian organisations is expected to grow 67 per cent in the next 12 months.
“Our survey shows that only 15 per cent of businesses in India can confidently use their business information without being either too permissive or too restrictive about its access,” said Anand Naik, managing director, sales, India and SAARC, Symantec. “Without the ability to properly protect their information assets, this data can become a liability. To counter this, businesses in India need to put in place a plan to manage their data assets so they can have a true competitive advantage.”
Information is Skyrocketing and It’s Expensive
Businesses of all sizes are dealing with enormous amounts of data. The total size of information stored today by all businesses globally is 2.2 zettabytes. Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) on average have 563 terabytes of data, compared with the average enterprise that has 1,00,000 terabytes. The survey also reveals that information is expected to grow 67 per cent over the next year for enterprises and 178 per cent for SMBs.
Globally, on average, enterprises spend $38 million annually on information, while SMBs spend $332,000. However, the yearly cost per employee for SMBs globally is a lot higher at $3,670, versus $3,297 for enterprise. For example, a typical 50-employee small business spends $1,83,500 on information management, whereas a typical large enterprise with 2,500 employees would spend $8.2 million.
Information Loss is High and Has Significant Impact
The survey found that a huge 89 per cent of Indian organizations have lost information in the past year.
These incidents have a significant impact: 31 per cent of Indian organizations revealed that losing some/all of their information could lead to decreased revenues, apart from loss of customers (34 per cent), increased expenses (33 per cent) and brand damage (35 per cent).
Moreover, 31 per cent of respondents were unable to comply with government regulations and 40 per cent faced similar challenges with external legal requirements around information management in the past year.
Protection Measures are Falling Short
With so much at stake, protecting information should be a top priority, yet businesses are still struggling. In the last year, besides 89 per cent of organisations losing information, 94 per cent of businesses in India have had confidential information exposed outside of the company, and 31 per cent have experienced compliance failures related to information.
Another challenge is the amount of duplicate information businesses are storing – an average of 38 per cent of data is duplicated. Storage utilization is also low, at only 23 per cent within the firewall and 20 per cent outside.
All these risks and inefficiencies result in businesses spending more than necessary on storing and protecting their information. A key issue identified by 30 per cent of businesses in India is information sprawl – the overwhelming growth of information that is unorganized, difficult to access and often duplicated elsewhere.
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