The UK has proven to be a beacon in the gloom in the run up to GDPR, with 74 per cent of businesses confident or very confident that they will be ready for its May arrival.
Backing up this confidence, it has also been revealed that UK business is spending an average of £1.3 million on achieving compliance, second only to Germany in Europe.
A familiar theme of low awareness and understanding from businesses toward GDPR has been in circulation for months, but the EfficientIP study also provides findings that go against this general belief.
Presenting insight into the impending EU regulation and its impact, 46 per cent of businesses stated that the most important benefit of GDPR would be in building customer trust. To add to this, 31 per cent of businesses stated that they believe compliance will be most valuable due to heightened brand awareness.
Herve Dhelin, SVP Strategy at EfficientIP said: “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.”
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Not only is a positive result regarding UK GDPR readiness revealed, but it also shows that organisations worldwide are getting to grips with compliance. Entering the 100 day final stretch, 72 per cent of organisations have been found ready to face the regulation on the 25 of May 2018.
These positive results stand in stark contrast to the majority of the commentary surrounding GDPR preparations. Focus has fallen primarily on the potentially crippling fines that will be equivalent to four per cent of an organisation’s annual turnover, rather than on the potential benefits of achieving compliance. The case does however remain that many businesses are not ready, and the hammer will come down hard at some point.
