Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 24 | Page 26

TRENDING //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// “ 60% OF THE OVERALL SAMPLE (UK: 53%) SAY THEIR BUSINESS HAS FULLY ADOPTED ALL GDPR MEASURES, WITH JUST 4% STILL TO BEGIN THE PROCESS (UK: 10%). respondents invested between £42,629 and £127,886. A further 25% said their company’s investment was over £127,887. The country that invested the most to meet its GDPR requirements was Italy, with 34.5% of Italian organisations investing over 26 INTELLIGENTCIO £127,887, followed by Germany (31.5%). The UK invested the least, with only 12.5% of UK respondents saying their company’s investment was over £127,887. Rafi Kretchmer, Head of Product Marketing at Check Point Software, said: “What’s clear from this research is that many European organisations have made significant progress in implementing the steps required to become GDPR compliant. And quite a few are already seeing powerful benefits. But for many firms, there’s still a lot that can be done. It’s important for organisations to adopt robust frameworks to meet the demands of GDPR, rather than simply shutting down access to tools and platforms that both employees and customers want to use – like mobile devices and the cloud. There are relatively easy- to-integrate methods of keeping data safe – such as document encryption and hard drive encryption. These approaches can ensure sensitive business data is protected, preventing data leaks and unauthorised access to data.” GDPR’s main aim is to protect private data, so cloud solutions came under scrutiny. Overall, 83% of those polled said their organisation uses cloud solutions. But many are more cautious about how the cloud is employed following GDPR’s introduction. Just 7% of companies took the drastic measure of ceasing to use cloud solutions altogether as a result of GDPR. The three most-anticipated long-term benefits of GDPR were found to be: • Helping organisations demonstrate their focus on customers’ data and increasing loyalty (45%) • Making operations more efficient, especially regarding cybersecurity (44%) • Providing a more comprehensive view on the information processed by the company (40%) However, nearly 13% overall believe that GDPR won’t bring any benefits to their business at all. The countries most pessimistic about GDPR’s benefits were Germany and the UK, with 21.5% and 20% of respondents stating that GDPR will not bring benefits. Respondents from Spain (3.5%) and Italy (6%) were more optimistic about GDPR benefits. n www.intelligentcio.com