2017

Disney’s latest offering, Beauty and The Beast, is hitting the multiplexes as we speak. Next year, the EU will officially release a blockbuster of its own that will hit companies in the solar plexus if they don’t start thinking about the measures they need to take. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – beautiful in its own right for wanting to give individuals greater control over their data, but a beast in terms of fines for non-compliance.

There’s a real concern that businesses aren’t prepared or are unclear on the extent of change required within their organisation. A survey by Symantec at the end of last year showed that 96% of companies still do not fully understand GDPR, with 91% revealing they have concerns about their ability to become compliant. Reinforcing the message was a study from Dell stating only 9% of IT and business professionals are confident they will be fully ready for the GDPR.

This month saw the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) issue its first subject specific guidance for UK organisations within GDPR on consent. Consent is a key standard within GDPR and as the ICO states, “indication must be unambiguous and involve a clear affirmative action.”

The objective is to provide choice and ongoing control of consent and make it more of a continually managed, rather than a one-off agreement. Consent is going to be a hot topic within businesses – think about how successful sales and marketing campaigns to customers and prospects will be without it.  It will require change in consent mechanisms, but on the flip side, if companies do it right, their reputation and trust in them will soar.

Consent alone proves that there are undoubtedly going to be many organisational and cultural challenges ahead for companies to prepare, achieve and then maintain GDPR compliance – after all this is the greatest development in data protection in Europe for over 20 years. As we have seen though, many still haven’t even thought or addressed the issue of GDPR, but thankfully, there’s still time. But it takes time to assess a business’ readiness to comply with GDPR so action should be start now.

Start spreading the word about GDPR preparation and how IT Channel community of resellers can help and support customers with services and consultancy to help them achieve compliance. And don’t forget to look after number one.  By being compliant, you’ll have first hand knowledge of what’s needed and be able to explore more business opportunities with your customers.

GDPR – it could be a box office hit for you.