Seven per cent of UK, German, French, Italian and Dutch IT suppliers say they have got their houses in order ahead of 25 May 2018
GDPR is being hailed as an enormous channel opportunity in some quarters, but only a small minority of resellers, MSPs and IT consultancies in the UK and mainland Europe have completed their own preparations for the incoming data protection regime.
That's according to new research from CRN, which quizzed over 250 resellers and other channel firms in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
The research, carried out in September in conjunction with SolarWinds MSP, forms part of an ebook that has been translated into German, French, Italian and Dutch.
Just seven per cent of the 168 UK respondents who answered this question said they had completed their preparations for GDPR, despite the survey being conducted just eight months before it comes into play on 25 May 2018, bringing with it tough new fines for rule flouters.
The results were similar for Germany (seven per cent), where there were 41 respondents, France (nine per cent of 54 respondents), Italy (four per cent of 49 respondents) and the Netherlands (11 per cent of 60 respondents).
A significantly higher proportion (UK: 30 per cent, Germany: 10 per cent, France: 15 per cent, Italy: 12 per cent, the Netherlands: 24 per cent) said they had so far done "nothing concrete" towards becoming compliant.
That said, most IT suppliers are at least on the road to compliance. The highest proportion of respondents in each country said they are in the process of implementing GDPR compliance plans (UK: 43 per cent, Germany: 51 per cent, France: 18 per cent, Italy: 20 per cent, the Netherlands 33 per cent).
Respondents were also invited to give detailed written feedback on their thoughts about GDPR, and a summary of the comments can be found in the ebooks.
A technical employee at one reseller/VAR said they felt it was important for resellers to demonstrate their own compliance with GDPR before positioning themselves as a GDPR expert to clients.
"Initially it is about getting our house in order and making sure the policies and procedures are adopted through the workforce by undertaking proper training and education," they said. "For our customers we want to be able to help them make good decisions around improving the accessibility of data in the event of a subject access or deletion request."
All the research, plus other GDPR-related content, can be found on our GDPR content hub.
This article was commissioned by SolarWinds MSP
