Business data in Indian organisations are likely to grow 67 per cent in the next 12 months, according to the “State of Information Survey” by Symantec Corp. Digital information will account for over 50 per cent of an organisation’s total value, the survey said.

The findings also revealed that 60 per cent of Indian businesses was struggling to effectively manage and protect their digital information.

Symantec recommends that organisations focus on the information and not on the device or data centre. “With BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and cloud, information is no longer within the four walls of a company.”

“Our survey shows that only 15 per cent of businesses in India can confidentially use their business information without being either too permissive or too restrictive about its access,” says Managing Director – Sales, for India and SAARC at Symantec, Anand Naik.

“Without the ability to properly protect their information assets, this data could become a liability. There is, therefore, a need to put a plan in place to manage this asset,” he said, pointing out that it could be difficult and expensive for businesses of all sizes to deal with enormous amounts of data.

Globally, the information stored by all businesses is said to be 2.2 zettabytes and SMBs (small and medium businesses) on an average have 563 terabytes of data. And, enterprises spend $38 million annually on information, while SMBs spend $332,000. However, the cost for each employee, particularly for SMBs, is a lot higher at $3,670 compared with $3,297 for enterprise.

“With so much at stake, the top priority should be on protecting information, but businesses still seem to be struggling to get this right. They must be able to separate useless data from valuable information and protect it accordingly,” say Symantec experts. While de-duplication and archiving help companies protect more, efficiency in such matters would help store less to keep pace with exponential data growth.

>revathy.lakshminarasimhan@thehindu.co.in

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