53% Of Businesses In India Have Not Come Close To Realize Their Digital Transformation Goals: Report Dell Technologies' data from 45 countries reveals a "Data Paradox": businesses say they need more data yet they're struggling to cope with and extract value from the data they have

Dell Technologies today released the results from a global commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, which shows most businesses in Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) are struggling with the proliferation of data. Instead of offering a competitive advantage, data has become a burden due to an array of barriers: a data skills gap, data silos, manual processes, business silos, and data privacy and security weaknesses. This "Data Paradox" is driven by the volume, velocity, and variety of data overwhelming businesses, technology, people, and processes.

1. The Perception Paradox

Two-thirds of respondents India: 74 per cent, say their business is data-driven and state "data is the lifeblood of their organization." But only a little over a fifth: 24 per cent testify to treating data as capital and prioritizing its use across the business.

The results show that 82 per cent of businesses in India are yet to progress either their data technology and processes and/or their data culture and skills. However, only 18 per cent of businesses in India are defined as Data Champions: companies that are actively engaged in both areas (technology/process and culture/skills).

2. The "Want More Than They Can Handle" Paradox

According to the research,82 per cent of organizations in India say they are gathering data faster than they can analyze and use, yet 71 per cent of businesses in India say they constantly need more data than their current capabilities provide. This could be the result of: hesitance to change, poor data leadership and an IT strategy that doesn't scale.

Consequentially,the explosion in data is making their working lives harder rather than easier. As per the research, 63 per cent of businesses in India complain they have such a glut of data they can't meet security and compliance requirements, and 67 per cent in India stated that their teams are already overwhelmed by the data that they have.

"At a time when businesses are under immense pressure to embrace digital transformation to accelerate customer service, they need to juggle getting more data in, as well as better mining the data that they have. Particularly now, with 44 per cent globally and in APJsaying the pandemic significantly increased the amount of data they need to collect, store, and analyze," commented Amit Midha, president, Asia Pacific and Japan and Global Digital Cities, Dell Technologies. "Becoming a data-driven business is a journey, and they'll need guides to help them along the way."

"We have been dwelling in an era where the business landscape has transformed like never before. Data deluge is one of the many challenges businesses are facing while managing and processing the volume of data being generated. In fact, 55 per cent of business in India believe that the pandemic has increased the amount of data they need to collect, store and analyze. This is forcing businesses to take a deeper look at their data management strategy," shared Ripu Bajwa, director and general manager, data protection solutions, Dell Technologies, India. "Hence, it has become a pre-requisite for organizations across industries, to accelerate their digital transformation journey and stay aligned with recent technological advancements. They need to focus on data-driven mindset, which will enable them to secure insights from the huge of amount of data being generated, helping them fast-track their digital journeys".

3. The "Seeing Without Doing" Paradox

Over the past 18 months, the on-demand sector has expanded, igniting a new wave of data-first, data-anywhere businesses. However, the number of businesses that have moved the majority of their applications and infrastructure to an as-a-Service model is still few in India, is 24 per cent.

Hope on the Horizon

Although businesses are struggling today, many have plans to create a better tomorrow. As per the research, in India, 80 per cent of the businesses intent to deploy machine learning to automate how they detect anomaly data, 60 per cent are looking to move to a data-as-a-service model and 57 per cent are planning to look deeper into the performance stack to re-architect how they process and use data in the next 1-3 years.

Three ways businesses can turn their data burden into a data advantage:

1. Modernizing their IT infrastructure, so it meets data where it lives, at the edge. This incorporates bringing businesses' infrastructure and applications closer to where data needs to be captured, analyzed and acted on–while avoiding data sprawl, by maintaining a consistent multi-cloud operating model.
2. Optimizing data pipelines, so data can flow freely and securely while being augmented by AI/ML.
3. Developing software to deliver the personalized, integrated experiences customers crave.