Symantec Corporation has announced the Indian findings of its first ever State of Information Survey. According to the survey, business data in Indian organizations is expected to grow 67% in the next 12 months. The survey revealed that digital information makes up 51% of an organization’s total value. However, with information spiraling rapidly, 60% of Indian businesses are struggling to effectively manage and protect their digital information.
“Our survey shows that only 15% 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 & 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.”
The total size of information stored today by all businesses globally is 2.2 zettabytes. SMBs, on an average, have 563 TB of data, compared with the average enterprise that has 100,000 TB. The survey also reveals that information is expected to grow 67% over the next year for enterprises and 178% 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 $183,500 on information management, whereas a typical large enterprise with 2,500 employees would spend $8.2 million.
The survey found that no less than 89% of Indian organizations had lost information in the past year.
These incidents have a significant impact: 31% of Indian organizations revealed that losing some/all of their information could lead to decreased revenues, apart from loss of customers (34%), increased expenses (33%) and brand damage (35%). Furthermore, 31% of respondents were unable to comply with government regulations and 40% faced similar challenges with external legal requirements around information management in the past year.
With so much at stake, protecting information should be a top priority, yet businesses are still struggling. In the last year, besides 89% of organizations losing information, 94% of businesses in India have had confidential information exposed outside of the company, and 31% have experienced compliance failures related to information. Another challenge is the amount of duplicate information businesses are storing – an average of 38% of data is duplicated. Storage utilization is also low, at only 23% within the firewall and 20% 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% of businesses in India is information sprawl.
