The GDPR Wake-Up Call Is Being Ignored By Business
Every week there are reports of new cyber-attacks and currently over half of European businesses and organisations have had cyber-attacks in 2019. A new report by business software experts Advanced has revealed that under a quarter of organisations still have not properly focused on their cyber security even though they continue to spend on IT and technology.
This information comes at the same time as UK firms reporting a cyber-attack has jumped, despite most businesses admitting they are under-prepared for breaches, according to research from insurance firm Hiscox.
The insurer found 55% had faced an attack in 2019, up from 40% last year. But almost three quarters of firms were ranked as "novices" in terms of cyber readiness.
British firms had the lowest cyber security budgets, it said, spending less than $900,000 on average compared with $1.46m across the group.They were also joint-least likely with US firms to have a "defined role for cyber security" on their staff. In France the proportion was closer to one in ten. Gareth Wharton, head of Cyber at Hiscox, said the low UK spending could be driven by the large number of small businesses in Britain.
Advanced Report
Whilst Advanced, the UK’s third largest software and services company has recentky announced that it has secured an investment from Funds advised by BC Partners and will aim to become the largest software and services company in the UK it has now released an interesting independent survey which analyses the digital transformation of 530 UK small, medium and large businesses which was begun and completed in June 2019.
The 2019 Digital Business Report which reviews the UK’s technological achievements as one of the global digital leaders in the global economy.
The report reviews the barriers to implementing a successful digital strategy and looks at the expectations brought about by the Cloud and looks at who is driving the adoption of these and other new technologies.
The Report makes the case for investing time, thought and investment in a focused digital strategy for all businesses.
What’s more, most businesses use more than one solution to run their core operations (like finance, sales and HR).
Larger organisations are favouring multiple software solutions over a single, all in one, system due to the unique requirements of each department (63%), the increased flexibility this offers (53%) and the lower risk of failure (38%).
The survey paints a slightly different picture for smaller organisations with almost half (47%) saying the different needs of their departments can be met by a single solution, paving the way for a single, fully-integrated ERP platform that supports the whole company from finance and sales right through to manufacturing and shipping.
Making the Cloud work
Moving to and integrating Cloud-based software is fast becoming the preferred choice for positive digital disruption. Thousands of British organisations of all shapes and sizes have dared to reimagine their business because they understand the benefits of the Cloud. In fact, 35% of survey respondents identify their organisation as an innovator, or early adopter of this technology.
Security and GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) should have been a wake-up call for organisations to better protect their customers’ personal data and get their data in order to improve visibility of their business across the board.
Why, then, do only 53% of businesses have a security strategy in place?
Worse still, just 24% of our survey respondents say their organisation is prioritising security when it comes to technology investment. This urgently needs to change. Both cyber security and data protection should be seen as enablers for, rather than barriers to, digital transformation.
Business Size
It’s expected that large organisations would be streets ahead of SMEs when it comes to digital transformation. But larger organisations are more complex and they have to manage legacy systems, handling large volumes of data and, in some cases, following old processes that are no longer fit-for-purpose or even compliant with the latest regulations such as GDPR.
What’s more, there are larger, more complex departments with multiple leaders and influencers all wanting to have their say on technology.
Strategic and tactical decisions are generally made far more quickly among SMEs as they don’t face the same barriers that large organisations typically do. It therefore makes smaller organisations often a bit quicker to take advantage of technologies with less disruption. The key element is to select solutions that provide future scalability.
OneAdvanced: BBC: Hiscox:
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