Canada Ranks Ninth of 16 Countries For Deploying Advanced Security, Data Protection in Recent Survey
Global Survey Reveals Startling Low Confidence Levels in Ability to Avert Unplanned Downtime, Security Breaches and Data Loss
TORONTO, Ont. – Nov 19, 2013 – EMC® Corporation (NYSE:EMC) today announced results of an independent survey revealing fresh insights into IT strategies and infrastructures deployed within companies and governments in Canada and throughout the world. Most notably, respondents cite a startling lack of senior executive confidence that permeates organizations globally, specifically concerning readiness around the critical IT requirements of continuous availability; advanced security; and integrated backup and recovery. Reduced investment in these critical areas threatens the ability of IT infrastructures to withstand and quickly recover from disruptive incidents such as unplanned downtime, security breaches and data loss and underscores the need to adopt progressive strategies to achieve Trusted IT infrastructures.
View complete survey details here.
The Global IT Trust Curve survey, administered by independent market research firm Vanson Bourne, spans 3,200 interviews across 16 countries (including Canada) and 10 industry sectors.
China received the top maturity ranking: Chinese IT decision makers reported implementing the highest concentration of sophisticated continuous availability, advanced security, and integrated backup and recovery technologies. The United States ranked second in maturity on the IT Trust Curve. Underscoring swift and aggressive technology investments to solidify their world influence, three of the four most mature countries — China, South Africa and Brazil — are BRICS nations. Japan ranked last on the IT Trust Curve in the16-nation survey.
David Goulden, EMC President and Chief Operating Officer, said, “The four big megatrends in information technology today are cloud computing, Big Data, social networking and mobile devices. Adoption and maturity of these trends must float upon a sea of trust — trust that my information is secure in the cloud, trust that my data won’t be lost or stolen, trust that my IT will be operational when it needs to be — which, these days, is all the time. The more trust that can be earned and guaranteed, the bigger and faster the impact of these trends. Conversely, the less trust that is established, the more limited these trends will be. Where countries fall on the IT Trust maturity curve could affect their overall ability to compete.”
“Only 58% of the Canadian companies surveyed thought their senior executives were confident their companies had adequate data protection, security and availability,” said Michael Sharun, Managing Director of EMC Canada. “Clearly there’s room for Canadian firms to improve the resiliency of their IT infrastructures and establish better levels of trust.”
Chief among the findings are:
- Canadian businesses scored 49.5 out of 100 on the IT maturity scale:
- 53% of executives said they had suffered at least one IT infrastructure incident in the last 12 months.
- 54% said budget was the most limiting factor in creating a more resilient infrastructure.
- Only 58% said their senior executives were confident in their data protection and availability.
- Only 44% said their percentage spend on IT increased from the previous year.
- The average financial impact of data loss over the previous 12 months was US$201,806.
- Lower levels of maturity permeate the globe
- More than half (57%) of all respondents fall into the lower maturity categories, while only 8% place in the Leader category.
- The higher organizations land on the maturity curve, the more likely they are to have already implemented more strategic and leading-edge technology projects such as Big Data Analytics.
- Lack of confidence in technology infrastructure:
- Nearly half (45%) of all respondents globally report that their senior executives are not confident that their organizations have adequate availability, security, and backup and recovery capabilities. In Canada this number decreases to 42%.
- When asked about executive confidence levels, the percentage of all respondents within each maturity level who said their senior executives are confident that their organizations have adequate availability, security, and backup and recovery are: Laggard (39%), Evaluator (51%), Adopter (65%) and Leader (81%).
- Japan has the smallest percentage of respondents (31%) reporting that their senior teams have confidence in these key aspects of IT; Germany has the highest percentage (66%).
- 19% (nearly one in five) of respondents worldwide cite an overall lack of confidence in their technology infrastructure. In Canada this number decreases to 10%.
- Significant disparity exists between how IT and business leaders perceive improvements:
- While 70% of IT decision makers consider the IT department to be the motivation/drive for future resilient and secure IT infrastructure, the number drops to 50% for business decisions makers when asked the same question. The split within Canada is 73% of IT decision makers and 44% of business decision makers.
- A similar perception gap extends in key disciplines such as security. While 27% of IT respondents report being victims of a data breach in the past 12 months, only 19% of business decision makers globally report being victims, indicating they are not aware of all technology incidents that impact the business.
- Organizations with higher levels of maturity avoid — and recover more quickly from — disruptive incidents and with reduced consequence. For example, globally:
- 53% of organizations in the Leader segment of the IT Trust Curve reported data recovery time measured in minutes or less for their most mission critical applications. The percentage drops to 27% across all maturity tiers.
- 76% of companies in the Leader segment believe they are able to recover 100% of their lost data in every instance versus only 44% in the lowest maturity segment.
- Organizations in the lowest maturity segment (Laggard) lost one and a half times more money over the last 12 months as a result of downtime than those in the highest maturity segment (Leader).
- Security breaches were the most costly events suffered by respondents, who reported an average annual financial loss of $860,273 due to breaches, followed by $585,892 and $497,037 respectively for data loss and downtime.
- Widespread unplanned downtime, security breaches and data loss:
- 61% of all respondents’ companies have suffered at least one of the following incidents: unplanned downtime (37%), security breach (23%) or data loss (29%) in the last 12 months. In Canada, the percentages change to the following for unplanned downtime (36%), security breach (15%) and data loss (19%) in the last 12 months.
- Top four consequences across organizations experiencing at least one of the above incidents within the last 12 months were loss of employee productivity (45%), loss of revenue (39 %), loss of customer confidence/loyalty (32%) and loss of incremental business opportunity (27%). Within Canada, the top three consequences change to the following: loss of employee productivity (58%), loss of revenue (37%) and loss of customer confidence/loyalty (28%)
- Budget constraints (52%) reigned as the #1 obstacle to implementing continuous availability, advanced security, and integrated backup and recovery solutions. Resources and/or workload constraints (35%), poor planning (33%) and knowledge & skills (32%) rounded out the top four. China was the only country that did not report budget as the #1 obstacle. Within Canada, the top constraints are budget (54%), knowledge and skills (31%) and planning and anticipation (31%).
- Top security concerns identified across all respondents were third party application access (43%) and protection of intellectual property (42%), pointing to the need for more advanced technology and intelligence-driven models:
- o There remains a heavy reliance on “prevention-oriented” security tools, with more than 80% of respondents using anti-virus and firewalls as the 2 most popular security solutions.
- o Just 18% have adopted Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and even fewer, 11%, have adopted Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) solutions, which provide the necessary monitoring and response capabilities needed to defend against more advanced threats.
- Highly regulated industries throughout the world displayed proportionally higher maturity levels:
- In addition to the IT and Technology (#3) industries, the remaining Top 5 most mature industries globally are the highly-regulated Financial Services (#1), Life Sciences (#2), Healthcare (#4) and Public Sector (#5)
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information can be found at www.emc.com.