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Nearly half (48 per cent) of businesses in India are at low levels of digital maturity, a new report said on Wednesday.

According to global technology brand Lenovo, about 87 per cent of Indian businesses consider digital infrastructure readiness to be mission-critical or important for achieving business goals -- but only 33 per cent are exceptionally/sufficiently prepared.

"Data innovation acts as a compass for CIOs (chief information officers), providing guidance to unlock new business opportunities and achieve digital success. By harnessing the power of data, companies can gain valuable insights to improve productivity and stay ahead of the competition," said Nigel Lee, Director of Storage - AP, Lenovo ISG.

Moreover, the report mentioned that the top two investment priorities for businesses in India are towards product and services engineering by 39 per cent and driving competitive differentiation in products and services by 37 per cent.

About 97 per cent of CIOs in India plan to accelerate their data-innovation journey in the next two years.

To become digital natives CIOs will need to accelerate IT modernisation and transformation, the report said.

"It is interesting to see the majority of CIOs in India committed to accelerating their data innovation journey in the next two years," said Amit Luthra, MD - India, Lenovo ISG.

As increasing deployment options, whether public, private, hybrid, or multi-Cloud, have led to challenges around data residing in silos, more than half (52 per cent) of businesses in India are looking to invest in software-defined storage solutions, followed by 44 per cent in the public cloud for data backup & business continuity, and 42 per cent in data management platform for hybrid/multi-cloud.

Further, the report stated that a Unified Management Platform is key to securing competitive advantage and businesses in India appear to be lagging with only 18 per cent managing to reduce multiple Data Management platforms down to a few.

Nearly 50 per cent of businesses still use multiple data management systems to independently manage block, file, and object data types with limited data mobility between public and private cloud, and edge locations.

The sustainability wave is strong in India, with 94 per cent of businesses including it in their business agenda, according to the report.

Regulatory and compliance requirements, improving resource utilisation, and attracting or retaining talent have become key business drivers of the sustainability agenda.