Data data everywhere …
We live in a data-centric world and as Michael Dell once said “AI is your rocket ship, and data is the fuel”.
According to a new study from Dell Technologies, 89% of businesses in EMEA see the potential value of data, and 29% of these companies are already monetising their information to gain a competitive advantage. There’s no question that businesses need to harness the power of their data in order to get the most out of it. But just as they must harness it, they must first know what they want to do with it. And then the challenge is to work out how to keep this liquid gold safely under lock and key, and securely stored. We’ve just released the third installment of our Dell Technologies Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) which shows a vast 569% increase in the growth of data since 2016. With all of this data sitting in the hands of mid-market and enterprise organisations, who have told us they are not sure what to do with it nor how to secure it, it’s now more important than ever for businesses to consider implementing modern data protection solutions and practices to ensure their organisations can remain competitive. This issue is not new and in fact in the EU in 2018, the introduction of GDPR meant a laser focus on data security. Yet almost one year later, many organisations are still struggling to ensure that they are fully GDPR compliant.
The biggest IT infrastructure pain point for customers used to be downtime – phone the helpdesk, call the ISP, get fixed up, get back online. These days, however, it’s all about the potential for data loss and data protection during those periods of downtime. According to figures from our 2018 GDPI research, 4 in 5 respondents from within EMEA experienced some type of disruption within the last 12 months. That means 80% of everyone surveyed across medium and large enterprises had some sort of downtime related issue which is huge, in fact it’s more than 2x higher than the previous year’s responses. And we’re not just talking terabytes and petabytes here, we’re talking serious cost to business. According to our data, 37% of businesses in EMEA experienced unplanned system downtime in the last 12 months with each incident coming in at an eye-watering cost of €458,000 on average.
In my discussions with customers right across the EMEA region, for mid-market and enterprise businesses alike, security is by and large the number one or number two overarching priority. They find it complex and difficult to understand the scope and how to ensure they are protected, and are looking at the public cloud as part of their security infrastructure overhaul. This sentiment is backed up by our research which shows that, on average, public cloud adoption as a percentage of the total IT environment has gone from 28% in 2016 to 40% in 2018.
To be ready for a digital future, mid-market as well as large enterprise customers are asking us how to transform their organisations, with time, money, people skills and risk featuring as the main barriers. When it comes to security transformation, working with us to figure out a data protection strategy is one of the best starting points to be future-ready especially with AI and machine learning becoming more prevalent. The research found that nearly half (43%) of those surveyed in EMEA are struggling to find suitable data protection solutions for these newer technologies.
If you’re reading this and panicking about how you’re going to get on top of everything and where to even start, rest assured, it’s not all doom and gloom. Being so close to the world of data in all its forms, technology companies like Dell Technologies fully appreciate the value of securing data perhaps more than some other industries which is why we are best placed to help our customers find the most suitable security solutions for their businesses.
