Org are gaining business advantages from data privacy investments - study

Cisco’s 2019 Data Privacy Benchmark Study validates the link between good privacy practice and business benefits.

Organizations worldwide have been working steadily towards getting ready for GDPR. Within the study, 59% of organizations reported meeting all or most requirements, 29% expect to do so within a year, and 9% will take more than a year. By country, GDPR-readiness varied from 42% to 75%. Spain, Italy, UK and France were at the top of the range, while China, Japan and Australia were on the lower end.

GDPR-ready organizations cited a lower incidence of data breaches, fewer records impacted in security incidents, and shorter system downtimes. They also were much less likely to have a significant financial loss from a data breach. Only 37% of GDPR-ready companies experienced a data breach costing more than USD 500,000, compared with 64% of the least GDPR-ready companies.

Those organizations that invested in data privacy to meet GDPR experienced shorter delays due to privacy concerns in selling to existing customers: 3.4 weeks vs. 5.4 weeks for the least GDPR ready organizations. Overall the average sales delay was 3.9 weeks in selling to existing customers, down from 7.8 weeks reported a year ago.

More than 3,200 global security and privacy professionals in 18 countries across major industries responded to the Cisco 2019 Data Privacy Benchmark Study about their organizations’ privacy practices.