93% Of Indian Businesses Recognize the Value of Data, Yet Struggle with Adequate Data Protection: Dell EMC Research

Based on Global Data Protection Index 2018, more than 3/4th of Indian businesses experienced disruption in the last 12 months

India – March 28, 2019

  • On an average, organizations in India witnessed 130% increase in data growth in 2018 (Globally: 569%)
  • 47% Indian business are already monetizing the data as compared to 36% worldwide
  • Both in India & globally, 76% respondents experienced a disruption in the last 12 months, while 30% experienced irreparable data loss in India (vis-à-vis Globally: 27%)
  • Nearly 3/4th of Indian respondents (72%) are very confident that their data protection infrastructure is compliant with existing regulations (Globally: 35%)

Full Story:

Dell EMC announced the results of the third Global Data Protection Index revealing an increasing growth rate of data of 130% in Indian organizations (vis-a-vis Globally: 569%) and an impressive jump in data protection “adopters” of nearly 50 percentage points (48%) since 2016. The research, which surveyed 2,200 IT decision makers from both public and private organizations with 250+ employees across 18 countries and 11 industries, provides a comprehensive understanding of the state of data protection and the maturity of data protection strategies.

Specifically, the Index uncovered an increase in the average amount of data managed – from 2.79 petabytes (PB) in 2016 to 6.43PB in 2018 in India (vis-à-vis globally:1.45 petabytes (PB) in 2016 to 9.70PB in 2018) – and a high awareness of the value of data. In fact, 93% of Indian respondents see the potential value of data (Globally 92%). While this acknowledgement is positive, most respondents are struggling to properly protect their data. The combination of these factors is driving many of the survey’s findings. 

Disruption Incidents Are Costly

The sheer volume of data and its importance to business operations make data protection much more challenging. Disruption incidents are occurring frequently, but more alarming is the increasing amount of irreversible data loss. More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents in India and globally experienced some type of disruption within a 12-month period. Moreover, around 30% of Indian businesses said (27% globally) that they were unable to recover data using their existing data protection solution.

Around 85% of India respondents are using at least two data protection vendors, in comparison to 75% worldwide. The most common type of disruption faced by organizations in India using two or more vendors were:

  • Unplanned systems downtime (51%)
  • Data loss (36%)
  • Local disaster that affected access to data for an entire site/group (34%)

Although unplanned systems downtime is more prevalent, data loss is far more expensive. For example, in India, those who encountered downtime experienced 29 hours of downtime on average in the last 12 months, costing $958, 583 (vis-à-vis 20 hours of downtime for global leaders, costing about $526,845). Indian respondents said that they lost more data than global & APJ counterparts, averaging 3.31 terabytes lost with a price tag of $1,287,788 (vis-a-via 2.13 terabytes costing $995,613 globally). It’s clear that organizations now recognize both at India (95%) and global level (81%) to take data protection more seriously for categories of data that have the greatest monetary value.

Challenges Surrounding Data Protection

Although, most of the Indian businesses are struggling to implement a solution that adequately fits their needs, data protection “adopters” sprang forward by nearly 50 percentage points from 2016 to 2018. Moreover, data protection “leaders” in India increased by 29 percentage points between 2016 to 2018, nearly 20 percentage points more than global counterparts.

Benchmark groups Description Today global 2016 global Today India 2016 India
Data Protection Leaders Place a very high value on data (data = capital)Have data protection solutions that will meet all or most future challenges 12% 2% 30% 1%
Data Protection Adopters Starting to invest in tools to monetize dataHave data protection solutions that will meet most future challenges 57% 9% 60% 12%
Data Protection Evaluators See the potential value of dataHave data protection solutions that will meet a minority of future challenges 29% 52% 10% 49%
Digital Laggards Place little or no value on dataHave data protection solutions that will not meet future challenges 2% 38% 0% 38%

The majority, 94% of India respondents said that they faced at least one challenge in relation to data protection (Globally: 95%). The top challenges in India include:

  1. The lack of data protection solutions for emerging technologies
  2. Inability to keep track and protect all data because of growth of DevOps and cloud developments
  3. The complexity of configuring and operating data protection software/hardware

For those who are struggling to find adequate data protection solutions for newer technologies, 71% in India said they could not find suitable data protection solutions for artificial intelligence and machine learning data, followed by cloud-native applications (58%) and robotic process automation (46%).

However, the challenges presented by emerging technologies and the rapid growth of data are just beginning to take shape. As such, more than 1/3rd (32%) in Indian respondents believe that their current data protection solutions will be able to meet all future business challenges as compared to only 16% globally.

Cloud Is Changing the Data Protection Landscape

As per the Global Data Protection Index 2018, public cloud use in India has increased from 34% to 44% (Globally: Currently 40%, 28% in 2016) of the total IT environment in organizations between 2016-2018. Moreover, 100% of Indian organizations said that they are using public cloud as part of their data protection infrastructure (Globally 98%).

The top use cases for data protection within public cloud in India are:

  1. Backup/snapshot services to protect workloads developed in public cloud using new application architectures (62%)
  2. Cloud-enabled versions of on-premises data protection software to protect public cloud workloads (59%)
  3. Backup/snapshot services to protect workloads developed in public cloud using legacy application architectures (52%)

Regulation Is an Impending Catalyst for Evolution

The research shows that 72% of Indian businesses felt very confident that their organization’s current data protection infrastructure and processes are compliant with regional regulations, in comparison with only 35% globally.

“With the rapid change in industry dynamics and the advent of newer technologies, it has become imperative for organizations to focus on the practical application of emerging technologies like AI and IoT to accelerate their digital transformation journey. The key in organizations’ digital transformation journey is the generation and analysis of data. Businesses in India are seeing better potential in the value of data & are monetizing it more than its global counterparts. This is a testimony of our progress as a nation highlighting our level of preparedness for the future security outbreaks.” says Mr. Ripu Bajwa, Director & General Manager – Data Protection Solutions, Dell EMC, India

About the Dell EMC Global Data Protection Index

Dell EMC commissioned Vanson Bourne for the third Global Data Protection Index, surveying 2,200 IT decision makers from both public and private companies with 250+ employees across 11 industries and 18 countries about the maturity of their data protection strategies. Vanson Bourne conducted the survey between September and November 2018. The countries surveyed include US, UK, France and Germany with 200 respondents each, and Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, UAE, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, India and Singapore with 100 respondents each.

About Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies is a unique family of businesses that provides the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT and protect their most important asset, information. The company services customers of all sizes across 180 countries – ranging from 98 % of the Fortune 500 to individual consumers – with the industry’s most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from the edge to the core to the cloud.

Appendix:

Key Findings – India, APJ, Global

Narrative header Sub-header India APJ Global
Data Protection Landscape Amount of Data managed 6.43 PB 8.13 PB 9.70 PB
Realize Potential value of data 93% 90% 92%
Already monetizing data 47% 35% 36%
Experienced disruption incidents within last 12 months 76% 80% 76%
Experienced irreparable data loss 30% 32% 27%
         
Data Protection Leaders 30% 13% 12%
Data Protection Adopters 48% 45% 48%
Data Protection Laggards 0% 3% 2%
         
Barriers Surrounding Data Protection     Lack of data protection solutions for emerging technologies 52% 43% 45%
Inability to keep track of and protect data because of growth of DevOps and cloud development teams 49% 46% 40%
Complexity of configuring and operating data protection software/hardware 48% 46% 46%
         
Cloud changing data protection landscape   (The top use cases for data protection within public cloud) Backup/snapshot services to protect workloads developed in public cloud using new application architectures 62% 48% 41%
Cloud-enabled versions of on-premises data protection software to protect public cloud workloads 59% 44% 40%
Backup/snapshot services to protect workloads developed in public cloud using legacy application architectures 52% 41% 38%
Backup of on-premises workloads/data 46% 38% 41%
Protecting specific SaaS apps 46% 41% 40%
         
Regulations Organizations’ data protection infrastructure in compliance with regional regulations 72% 34% 35%
Organizations which experienced data loss or unplanned downtime in past 12 months reported paying punitive fines as a result 24% 12% 12%