USA, China, SA, lead in IT Trust

The EMC Global IT Trust Curve survey has revealed that many companies around the world lack senior executive confidence, especially regarding critical IT requirements. However, China, South Africa and Brazil were ranked at the top of the list.

EMC has revealed a wave of fresh insights about the IT strategies and infrastructures deployed within companies and governments throughout the world. Most notably, a startling lack of senior executive confidence 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, spanning 3,200 interviews across 16 countries and 10 industry sectors, also quantified wide-ranging geographic and industry variations. 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 ‚Äî 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 ‚Äî 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.‚”

Chief among the findings are:

o 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.

o 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 28% across all maturity tiers.

o 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 Laggard segment.

o Overall, 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).

o Security breaches were the most costly events suffered by respondents globally, who reported an average financial loss over the last 12 months of $860,273 due to breaches, followed by $585,892 and $494,037 respectively for data loss and downtime. In South Africa the averages were $139,722 for security breaches, $420,435 for data loss and $177,816 for downtime among the lowest responses from the surveyed countries.

Executive and Analyst Quotes

Irina Simmons, Chief Risk Officer, EMC

‚”Most IT practitioners do everything within their power and control to protect the enterprise. Where breakdowns can occur is in communicating up to business leaders, executives, Boards and audit committees. We hear it from Boards all the time. Practitioners need to be able to demonstrate to leadership that they have a governance process whereby they can adequately instil confidence that risks are being addressed in line with the organization’s overall risk appetite and profile. Success against a particular threat is not just and accident good luck, but the result of a solid process that continually monitors and addresses new risks and threats to the enterprise.‚”

Dave Martin, Chief Security Officer, EMC

‚”The time has come for the industry to double down. It’s impossible to deliver advanced security if we lack foundational maturity. Without a predictable environment, or understanding of where our assets are, or an ability to pick up on nuances and detect behavioural anomalies, we will be unable to defend the organization. That baseline of foundational maturity is an absolute enabler of effective security and establishing overall trust.‚”

Christian Christiansen, Program Vice President for IDC’s Security Products and Services Group.

‚”Among the many powerful insights that flow from this global study, the rampant lack of senior executive confidence stands out as both alarming and, unfortunately, a sign of the times. Nearly half of respondents say their senior management has zero confidence that their organizations are prepared with adequate availability, security, and backup and recovery. That one startling fact stands as a wakeup call for company boards to make the necessary investments to brace against both external and self-imposed disruptions and threats to their IT systems and data.‚”

* Security image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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