Bangkok--20 Aug--Oasis Media
Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that information costs businesses worldwide $1.1 trillion annually, according to its first ever State of Information Survey [hyperlink]. From confidential customer information, to intellectual property, to financial transactions, organizations possess massive amounts of information that not only enable them to be competitive and efficient — but also stay in business. In fact, the survey revealed that digital information makes up 49 percent of an organization’s total value.
This study is based on 4,506 responses in 38 countries, of which 100 responses came from Thailand. The survey revealed that in Thailand, 50 percent of the worth of organizations is derived from the information they own.
Read more detailed blog post: State of Information
“Data is the new currency for businesses today. While the vast amount of information that organisations produce today can help them to better serve their customers and increase productivity, the same information can also become a liability if it is not properly protected. To be successful, companies need to find new, innovative and cost effective ways to protect their information and unleash the productivity it can bring,” said Pramut Sriwichian, country manager for Thailand, Symantec.
Click to Tweet: Digital information costs businesses $1.1 trillion. Is the money being spent wisely? http://bit.ly/LjaIvn
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 is 2.2 zettabytes. Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) on average have 563 terabytes of data, compared with the average enterprise that has 100,000 terabytes. The survey also reveals that information is expected to grow 67 percent over the next year for enterprises and 178 percent for SMBs.
On average, enterprises spend $38 million annually on information, while SMBs spend $332,000. However, the yearly cost per employee for SMBs 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 Business Impact of Lost Information
The consequences of losing business information would be disastrous. “We would have to fold our operations for at least a couple of years before we’d come back again,” noted an IT manager at a large engineering firm when asked about the consequences of losing the enterprise’s information. Respondents highlighted the impact of data loss to their business, including lost customers (49 percent), damage to reputation and brand (47 percent), decreased revenue (41 percent), increased expenses (39 percent) and a tumbling stock price (20 percent).
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, 69 percent of businesses experienced some form of information loss for a variety of reasons, such as human error, hardware failure, security breach, or lost and stolen devices. In addition, 69 percent have had confidential information exposed outside of the company, and 31 percent have experienced compliance failures related to information. Another challenge is the amount of duplicate information businesses are storing — an average of 42 percent of data is duplicated. Storage utilization is also low, at only 31 percent within the firewall and 18 percent 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 percent of businesses is information sprawl — the overwhelming growth of information that is unorganized, difficult to access and often duplicated elsewhere.
Businesses Need to Put the “I” Back in “IT”
To help businesses more effectively protect their information, Symantec has the following recommendations:
? Focus on the information, not the device or data center: 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 center.
? 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’s located… physical, virtual and cloud environments.
? Stay agile: Plan for your future information needs by implementing a flexible infrastructure to support continued growth.
Resources
? Report: State of Information Survey Results 2012
? SlideShare: State of Information Survey Results 2012
? Infographic: State of Information
? Blog: State of Information
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