'Data loss cost Indian biz $54 bn'

Data loss and downtime cost Indian businesses a whopping $54 billion annually, information technology major EMC corporation said in a report. According to EMC's global data protection index, which was conducted by market research firm Vanson Bourne, companies worldwide lost 400 per cent more data on average over the last two years that is equivalent of 24 million emails each year.

"Data loss and downtime cost Indian enterprises $54 billion in the last twelve months," the study said. The survey covered 3,300 IT decision makers from mid-size to enterprise-class businesses across 24 countries, including 125 respondents from India. "Seventy per cent of enterprises surveyed experienced data loss or downtime in the last 12 months, while the average business experienced more than 2.5 working days (23 hours) of unexpected downtime in the last 12 months," it added. Other commercial consequences of disruptions were loss of employees' productivity (58 per cent) and loss of revenue (50 per cent), the study revealed.

"As businesses continue to struggle to protect their current workloads, the findings show that many enterprises in India are still ill-prepared to face the protection challenges that come with emerging data storage technologies," EMC India Country Manager Surajit Sen said.

With data protection technologies evolving in parallel with challenges that are emerging, businesses in India will find it easier to protect themselves by staying abreast of these developments and thinking strategically about data protection, he added. "This research highlights the enormous monetary impact of unplanned downtime and data loss to businesses everywhere," EMC Core Technologies President Guy Churchward said.

With 62 per cent of IT decision-makers interviewed feeling challenged to protect hybrid cloud, big data and mobile, it is understandable that almost all of them lack the confidence that data protection will be able to meet future business challenges, he added.