With just 100 days before the deadline for EU GDPR compliance on 25th May 2018, a pan-European study finds that businesses have never been so close to being fully compliant to new data regulations, and for the first time, organisations identify the positive benefits of compliance.
According to research by EfficientIP finds that 72% of global businesses are are confident they will have all required GDPR compliance processes in place by 25th May 2018. North America is the most confident region in world, with American and Canadian organisations saying they will be prepared at 84% and 75% respectively.
Despite the ongoing Brexit negotiations and uncertainty looming over the enforcement and effectiveness of the EU GDPR regulation on local businesses, the UK is the most confident nation in Europe, with 74% saying they will be ready by deadline day.
In comparison, Spanish businesses are a close second to the UK at 73%, dropping to 66% of French respondents. German organisations are the least confident in Europe at 61%.
But it is the positivity among businesses about GDPR that is really of note. Companies worldwide believe there will be a variety of benefits they will gain from being GDPR compliant. Nearly half of all organisations surveyed, at 46%, say the most important benefit from being GDPR compliant is gaining customer trust to handle sensitive data. 31% of businesses believe the most important value from compliance is enhanced brand awareness. 18% of respondents felt GDPR compliance will increase customer loyalty is the most important benefit.
APAC, North America and Europe businesses believe the biggest positive impact from compliance is increased trust in handling customer data at 53%, 46% and 41% respectively.
European organisations lead the study in saying increased customer loyalty is the biggest impact at 22%, with North America and APAC following respectively at 15%, 14%.
A key element in EU GDPR is for businesses to provide adequate data protection. In response to this regulatory requirement, 38% of global organisations are convinced that better monitoring and analysis of DNS traffic is the best option to provide data protection in their networks, whilst 35% think securing network endpoints is best and only 21% choose to add more firewalls. This shows organisations are finally realising, after the various successful data breaches over the last year, that firewall technology is no longer adequate.
Commenting on the study figures, Herve Dhelin, SVP Strategy at EfficientIP says: “As organisations enter the final straight of GDPR compliance with 100 days to go, our research shows they have never been so close to regulatory compliance. There is still some work to do, but it is encouraging to see nearly three-quarters of businesses are ready and most organisations see monitoring and analysis of DNS traffic, not firewalls nor endpoints, is the best way of preventing data breaches.”
