Veritas can reach APAC customers via GDPR
LAS VEGAS, USA--With the deadline for compliance nearing, the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) offers opportunities for data management vendors such as Veritas Technologies to reach out and grow their enterprise customer base in Asia-Pacific.
Many businesses in the region remained uncertain about how the new laws would impact them and how they could ensure compliance, said Gurpal Singh, senior market analyst at IDC's Asia-Pacific software research group.
Approved in April 2016, the European Union legislation would provide 500 million citizens rights to control their data as well as the ability to instruct businesses to not build user profiles on them or migrate their data from one provider to another.
EU citizens also would have the "right to be forgotten", compelling search engines to remove certain links from search results on the individuals' names if the URLs pointed to data that were outdated or irrelevant.
Companies that failed to comply with the new laws would face hefty fines, which could range from up to 4 percent of the organisation's annual global revenue or 20 million euros (US$22.34 million), whichever was greater. Any organisation that processed personal data of EU citizens would be required to comply with the regulation.
Veritas had made GDPR a strong focus in the past year, touting its wares as essential in helping companies ensure compliance when the data privacy law took effect May 25 next year.
It offered a dedicated portfolio that comprised, amongst others, a GDPR Risk Analyzer that enabled businesses to analyse a sample file content to assess their risk, data visualisation tools, and professional services.
This focus remained highly apparent at the software vendor's Vision 2017 conference here this week, where it released a range of new products and updates that included further support to help customers with GDPR.
Singh, speaking to ZDNet on the sidelines of the event, noted that while there was increased awareness of GDPR amongst Asia-Pacific organisations, most did not know how to assess their compliance and were unsure about the specifics of the EU law. For example, they were uncertain about whether a user's e-mail ID should be considered a PII (personally identifiable information).
He pointed to product offerings such as Veritas Information Map, further enhanced this week with new data connectors, that could offer businesses more visibility and insights on their data.
Noting that Veritas was one of the first tech vendors to discuss the impact of GDPR, he said the vendor already was seeing "good traction" in terms of revenue from Asia-Pacific. Further opportunities could be found in tools focused on data protection and recovery, particularly in relations to GDPR compliance, he added.
However, he noted, vendors looking to tap this market would be challenged by a lack of readiness amongst businesses in the region, most of which did not have a roadmap or action plan in place with regards to GDPR.
According to an April 2017 study conducted by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Veritas, 56 percent of Singapore-based companies had expressed concerns they would not be able to meet the deadline for compliance. In fact, organisations in the country, as well as Japan and South Korea, were amongst the least prepared for GDPR, revealed the survey which polled 100 respondents from each market.
In addition, 21 percent in Korea and Japan were concerned non-compliance could result in loss of customers due to negative media and social coverage, while this figure stood at 20 percent in Singapore.
Based in Singapore, Eileen Yu reported for ZDNet from Vision 2017 in Las Vegas, USA, on the invitation of Veritas Technologies.