3 Out of 4 Companies Unprepared for GDPR

Openprise Survey of 500 Professionals Shows Lack of Awareness of New Regulations Affecting Marketing & Sales Teams

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Nov 29, 2017, 06:00 ET

SAN MATEO, Calif., Nov. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Openprise, the leader in data orchestration solutions for marketing and sales, polled 508 Dreamforce conference attendees in San Francisco earlier this month on their awareness of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

GDPR, which takes effect on May 25, 2018, strengthens data protections for all individuals within the European Union (EU). In addition, it addresses the export of personal data outside the EU. It affects any company that has EU prospect or customer data in its marketing and sales systems, regardless of whether it has offices or salespeople in the EU. The penalties for non-compliance are steep: up to €20 million, or 4% of a company's annual global revenue, whichever is greater, based on the seriousness of the breach and damages incurred.

With only six months to go until GDPR takes effect in May, however, only about half of survey respondents at Dreamforce were aware of GDPR, and the number is even lower (43%) for those in sales and marketing.

While awareness was higher (72%) for those who indicated that they had EU data in their company database, most said they're still ill-prepared: only three out of five indicated that they had a framework to ensure GDPR compliance.

Furthermore, awareness didn't guarantee understanding or readiness. Of those who knew what GDPR was:

Only 49% had a framework in place for compliance.
38% weren't sure what the biggest challenge was when it comes to compliance.
32% perceived "managing data stored across different parts of the organization" as the biggest hurdle, followed by a lack of understanding of GDPR's impact (21%), and identifying who within the organization shoulders the responsibility (10%).

"It's disconcerting that companies as a whole still lack awareness when it comes to GDPR, not to mention an understanding of how to gain compliance. The runway is disappearing," said Ed King, Founder and CEO of Openprise. "If you have any EU data in your sales and marketing databases, you must act now to ensure GDPR compliance and avoid steep penalties that could sink your company."

According to Julian Archer, Senior Research Director, Marketing Operations Strategies at SiriusDecisions, "The Openprise survey results align with our own research findings. The reality is that most US-based marketers are just now beginning to understand what GDPR is, and they're quickly realizing that failing to comply is not an option."

The survey was conducted by Openprise, whose data orchestration platform automates critical business processes, including data onboarding, data cleansing and enrichment, data unification across systems, and data delivery.

The Openprise Data Orchestration Platform provides critical GDPR capabilities, including the ability to: control the flow of EU data out of a company through fine-grained data filters and permission roles; identify leads and contacts that fall under GDPR, even if they're missing a valid field code; and maintain detailed reporting on data processing activities inside Openprise and across third parties.

Learn more about how to maintain GDPR compliance, or sign up for the live webinar: GDPHuh? A Data-Driven Marketer's Guide to GDPR.

Media Contacts:

Allen Pogorzelski
Openprise
888-810-7774x703
[email protected]

Anne Marie McCallion
ReturnPR
[email protected]
(888) 810-7774 x704

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SOURCE Openprise