Posted by Mumbai: 64% of Indian organisations made new data protection purchases following a security incident, according to a Synology commissioned survey conducted by Foundry. That’s highest percentage among the surveyed markets including Australia, India, Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.
308 IT decision-makers across those markets participated in the 2026 Enterprise Survey. It study examined enterprise preparedness for data protection as AI adoption accelerates and IT environments become increasingly complex.
Despite 99% of respondents expressing confidence in their organisation’s resilience to disruption, the research identified gaps in backup frequency, recovery validation and coordination across data protection tools. The findings suggest that confidence in cyber resilience does not necessarily translate into operational readiness.
Security incidents drive data protection investments in India
Security incidents emerged as the leading trigger for new data protection purchases among Indian organisations. 64% of Indian respondents reported making a new data protection purchase following a security incident, compared with 49% in Australia and 48% in MEA.
Infrastructure upgrades were another significant driver, cited by 46% of Indian firms, while 32% identified cost reduction as a purchase trigger. The latter figure was notably higher than Australia’s 18%.
Only 29% of Indian respondents cited regulatory requirements as a trigger for new data protection purchases.
This comes as Indian businesses prepare for the implementation of key obligations under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. Including the requirements relating to personal data breach notifications and reasonable security safeguards, scheduled to take effect in May 2027.
The findings suggests that many organisations continue to approach data protection reactively, with investments frequently following security incidents. Rather than being proactive risk management and compliance planning driven.
Enterprise confidence does not always reflect recovery readiness
Although confidence in organisational resilience remains high, the survey identified several operational challenges in enterprise data protection practices.
Integration emerged as the most frequently cited challenge in managing data protection environments. Organisations increasingly rely on multiple tools for backup, disaster recovery, ransomware protection and security. When these systems operate independently, they can create additional management complexity and make coordinated recovery more difficult.
Backup frequency also remains a concern. Only 43% of surveyed organisations reported using real-time or continuous data protection, while the remaining 57% relied on daily, weekly or monthly backups.
The time between backup operations can represent a potential window for data loss, particularly when organisations experience ransomware attacks, system failures or other disruptions.
Recovery validation presents another challenge. The survey found 20% of organisations validate recoverability only occasionally, while another 6% lack a coordinated recovery approach or remain reactive.
These findings highlight the importance of regularly testing backup systems and recovery procedures rather than relying solely on the existence of a backup infrastructure or documented recovery plan.
Fragmented protection tools increase IT management burden
The survey also found that organisations continue to make data protection investments in response to security incidents. Across all surveyed markets, 54% of organisations reported making a new data protection purchase following a security incident, with the proportion rising to 64% in India.
Fragmented protection environments are adding to the operational burden. Respondents reported spending an average of 15 hours per week managing data protection across separate tools. Meanwhile, 5% said they spend 40 hours or more per week on these activities, equivalent to a full-time position.
The findings indicate that managing disconnected protection solutions can consume valuable IT resources that could otherwise be directed towards infrastructure modernisation, security improvements and strategic technology initiatives.
Data protection spending expected to increase
Looking ahead, organisations expect data protection investments to grow by approximately 14% to 15% over the next two years. The survey found that 69% of organisations anticipate investment increases of at least 10%.
Meanwhile, 31% of respondents identified AI-driven automation as an investment priority, compared with just 12% who prioritised backup modernisation. The figures point to a potential gap between investment in emerging technologies and the modernisation of foundational data protection capabilities.
As enterprises increasingly integrate AI into business operations, ensuring the security, availability and recoverability of the underlying data will remain an important part of enterprise IT strategy.
Moving towards proactive cyber resilience
The survey highlighted organisations’ need to move beyond confidence-based assessments of cyber resilience and focusing on measurable operational preparedness. “As security attacks increasingly target backups, cyber resilience can no longer be treated as an add-on layer assembled after deployment,” said Jia-Yu Liu, EVP – Data Protection Group, Synology.
Regular backup validation, coordinated recovery planning, integration across protection environments and proactive investment in data protection infrastructure. These are among the key considerations for organisations seeking to minimise disruption.
As AI adoption and enterprise technology environments continue to evolve, organisations will need to ensure their data protection strategies keep pace with changing security and operational requirements.
The Synology 2026 Enterprise Survey was conducted between May 11 and June 2, 2026, among 308 IT decision-makers across markets. All respondents held network administrator or senior positions in IT, networking or security at organisations with 100 or more employees that already had data protection solutions in place.