The survey of over 900 senior IT decision makers included 250 from the UK. It revealed that 89 per cent of respondents in the UK believe their organization’s secondary data is fragmented across silos and is, or will become, nearly impossible to manage long term, the consequences of which could be devastating. Respondents cited growing fears around competitive threats, compliance risks, job losses, sinking morale, and missed opportunities to increase revenue by as much as 10 per cent.
Mass data fragmentation refers to the growing proliferation of data spread across a myriad of different locations, infrastructure silos, and management systems that prevents organizations from fully utilizing its value. The survey, commissioned by Cohesity and conducted by Vanson Bourne, found that 88 per cent of UK decision makers believe it’s important, very important, or extremely important to solve the challenges of mass data fragmentation. Respondents include enterprises in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and Japan across a variety of industries including financial services, healthcare, life sciences, media and entertainment, technology and the public sector. The companies represented in the survey had average revenues of more than £8 billion ($10.5 billion).
“IT leaders globally are wrestling with mass data fragmentation and the snowball effect caused by this critical infrastructure challenge,” said Mohit Aron, CEO and founder of Cohesity. “Data silos create compute and management silos and it becomes nearly impossible for organizations to solve this constantly growing problem. Data becomes a burden when it really should serve as a competitive asset.”
What Is Driving Mass Data Fragmentation?
The results show there are several core issues accelerating mass data fragmentation challenges.
Mass data fragmentation has the potential to wreak havoc on IT teams and budgets that are already spread thin. The overwhelming majority of UK respondents believe it will take their IT teams more time to manage secondary apps and data – on average 29 per cent more time or close to an additional 16 weeks each year – if proper tools aren’t in place. And, for those who believe their organization’s secondary data is fragmented, nearly half fear they will exceed their IT budget due to spending on unnecessary storage.
Concerns About Compliance, Competitiveness, and Employee Wellbeing
The survey also uncovered serious risks that mass data fragmentation poses to organizations.
Compliance risks and competitive challenges:
Employee wellbeing:
If IT is expected to manage all of the organization’s secondary data and apps without proper technology, within the UK:
Solving Mass Data Fragmentation Unlocks Significant Rewards
88 per cent of senior IT decision makers said that if half of the IT resources their organization spends managing secondary data were redeployed to more business-critical IT actions, it could have a positive impact on the company’s revenues over a five-year period.