Data is today’s most valuable asset, outstripping physical infrastructure or even brand equity. Global research shows intangible corporate assets, primarily data such as R&D and IP, exceeding $60 trillion in value. Used effectively, data unlocks competitive edge, new markets, better decision-making, and helps deliver transformative customer experiences.
Amid fast-moving geopolitical forces and volatile economic conditions, data sovereignty has shot to the top of the agenda for governments, regulators, and businesses alike. In an uncertain world, organisations will need channel partners’ market insights and technical advice more than ever to manage and safeguard their data, and ensure the success of day-to-day operations.
Data residency and sovereignty
Data sovereignty is the principle that data is subject to the laws and governance structures of the country in which it is collected or stored. Italso concerns who has the authority to dictate how the data is managed, accessed, and used in an interconnected world.
Until recently, many organisations assumed that data sovereignty meant where their data resided. Amid geopolitical and market shifts, however, companies need to distinguish between data residency: where data is physically stored, and data sovereignty: who has jurisdiction over that data.
A perfect storm
Today, new risk factors are rapidly reshaping the data sovereignty landscape and imposing new constraints on companies’ data access and use.
Three trends in particular are forcing C-suites to reconsider their data’s location, who has authority over it, and how this impacts their operations:
Geopolitical tensions
As conflicts and economic sanctions increase, nations are restricting the flow of goods, services, collaboration and information. Global studies suggest that disruptions to data flows alone could reduce globalGDP by 4.5%.
Until recently, the idea of third parties using a ‘kill switch’ to disrupt a company’s digital operations would have seemed outlandish. However, governments or multinationals’ operations now risk being revoked without warning via new laws or data regulations. These conditions underscore the importance of enterprises working with expert partners to better understand where corporate data is located and managed, containing risk, and improving resilience.
New regulations
Second, new regulatory regimes have redefined companies’ scope for storing and processing personal data. Government legislators – notably the EU’s privacy drive through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – have sought to control data flows to strengthen their citizens’ rights.
Heightened compliance demands are reshaping C-level decision-making on cloud strategy, AI adoption and third-party access to corporate data. Channel partners can play a pivotal role in helping businesses rethink and update their approach to data sovereignty, data governance and their accompanying cloud strategies.
Critical infrastructure
Thirdly, changing data sovereignty requirements are driving reappraisals of critical infrastructure.Individual governments’ policy shifts are creating uncertainty for cross-border data governance, cloud access, and international regulatory harmonisation. Particularly in sensitive industries such as healthcare. As a result, organisations are looking to channel specialists to help them achieve greater control, visibility, and jurisdictional alignment across their data infrastructure; this is not only to simplify compliance, but also to more effectively meet wider business objectives, operational resilience, and maintain customer trust.
Leaders rethink risk
Where have these shifts left business leaders? Recent research found that 100% of IT decision makers said data sovereignty risks, including the possibility of service disruption, have caused organisations to consider where their data is located. Meanwhile 85% of respondents said not adequately dealing with data sovereignty concerns would result in loss of customer trust. Faced by threats of service outages or degraded information flows, nearly four in five (78%) leaders are embedding sovereignty in core processes.
But they don’t have all of the answers, and there is a huge opportunity for channel partners to help guide organisations through three main approaches:
First, developing a data strategy in conjunction with a technology integrator or reseller partner with key priorities of ensuring what data should go where and how it should be managed – based on data sensitivity, the nature of personal data, downstream impacts, and the potential for identification.
Second, the enterprise might detach from its non-domestic public cloud service providers, although this is a riskier approach, given the likely loss of access to innovation and financial fallout that could impair the organisation’s pursuit of its business objectives.
Thirdly, organisations may choose to do nothing, and hope that current market, geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty settles down to historic levels. This is the riskiest option, leaving no protection from potentially devastating financial and reputational consequences of inaction.
Ensuring data sovereignty
Given today’s convergence of risks, data sovereignty no longer equates to data residency. Company leaders have quickly grasped that it is a more complex principle, encompassing legal authority over data, how it is accessed or shared, and whose jurisdiction it falls under.
Forward-looking companies, aided by expert channel partners, will be able to successfully navigate these new challenges with comprehensive data strategies that better contain all relevant infrastructure, partner, supply chain and regulatory risks.
This article was produced in association with Everpure and is classified as partner content. What is partner content? See more here.
Geoff Greenlaw
Geoff Greenlaw is Vice President, EMEA and LATAM Channel at Everpure
