Cyber insecurity emerge as biggest threat to business operations in India: Survey

The biggest threat to business operations in India have the biggest threat of information and cyber insecurity, followed by terrorism and insurgency, a survey on Friday revealed.

The findings were released shortly before a spokesperson for the BJP outlined job creation and capital formation as major challenges before the government.

"The biggest challenge for us is how will we create jobs. Now we are facing this problem with technological innovation and robotics coming in, further we will have a difficulty in job creation.

"Capital formation is the big challenge the government is now facing. In spite of all the efforts of investment from the government's side, private investment has not taken place, capital formation is not taking place, that is one challenge which the government has to take care of," Gopal Krishna Agarwal, National Spokesperson for Economic Issues, BJP, said.

He was speaking at the release of Ficci-Pinkerton India Risk Survey 2017, which noted that information and cyber insecurity has become more pronounced due to the shift that India is undergoing towards digitisation of various assets and services being delivered via Internet and mobile platforms, and the ever-present loopholes that hackers breach upon.

The risk emanating from terrorism and insurgency rose two spots from from the year 2016 to rank as the second biggest threat to businesses in India in 2017, according to the survey.

It described the left-wing extremism perpetrated by communist terrorist groups as the most severe terror threat.

"The persistent risk posed by terrorism and insurgencies creates a risk perception in the minds of investors with interest in the Indian market.

"Although India has invested heavily in its security capability to mount effective counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations, the effects of the perception of this risk continue to affect businesses especially with respect to foreign investment," the survey said.

New risks have been identified on the basis of the year 2017 survey which include risk of non-compliance, business investment risk and legal regulatory risk.

Corruption, bribery and corporate frauds rank as the third biggest risk, even though there is a sense of lowering corruption via regulations such as GST, demonetisation, Make in India and the Digital India programme.

The India Risk Survey 2017 ranks natural hazards as the fourth highest risk to businesses, up from seventh position in 2016. India is considered at a 'high risk' of natural hazards with flooding identified as the most significant risk to businesses and communities in the country.

Fire has been ranked fifth, up by three positions from the last the ranking in 2016.

In contrast to survey in 2016, strikes, closures and unrest dropped six positions to rank seven in the survey.

Crime as a risk factor dropped to the eighth position in 2017, from its third ranking in last year's survey.