Data loss, downtime costs Aussie businesses $65B

Data loss and downtime has cost Australian organisations around $65.5 billion (US$55 billion) in the last 12 months, according to a new survey.

Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of the 125 Australian companies surveyed as part of the EMC Global Data Protection Index – researched by Vanson Bourne – experienced data loss or downtime over the period.

The average organisation experienced more than three working days (27 hours) of unexpected downtime. Other commercial consequences of disruptions were loss of employee productivity (54 per cent), and loss of revenue (44 per cent), the survey found.

The majority (78 per cent) of Australian organisations are still not fully confident in their ability to recover after a disruption, and companies with three or more vendors lost 10 times as much data as those with a single vendor strategy, the research said.

Simon Eid, general manager, data protection and availability division, at EMC Australia and New Zealand, said it was worrying that the majority of local organisations are lagging behind in deploying modern data protection methods.

“As Australian organisations increasingly embrace mobile, cloud, and big data projects for 2015, the pressures on data protection will only increase. In fact, 60 per cent of Australian businesses feel challenged when it comes to protecting emerging technologies,” he said.

The survey found that 58 per cent of Australian organisations still lack a disaster recovery plan for emerging workloads, and only 7 per cent have plans for big data, hybrid cloud and mobile.

China, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Singapore and the United States lead protection maturity, while Switzerland, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates lag behind. Australia ranked 11th out of 24 countries surveyed.

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Follow Byron Connolly on Twitter:@ByronConnolly