Data sovereignty now key factor in shaping IT decision making

New survey results from International Data Corporation (IDC) show that data sovereignty and compliance are now an important factor in shaping IT selection and design decisions.

Almost half the respondents (48%) to IDCs Cloud Pulse 2Q22 survey say that data sovereignty and industry compliance have factored highly in discussions about their future IT architectures. And just 4% of respondents believe their IT organisations will not be impacted by data sovereignty and compliance considerations.

Among organisations that expect their IT budgets to increase in the coming year, the vast majority believe that data sovereignty and industry compliance considerations will strongly influence service provider selection decisions and decisions about their primary data centre environments.

Chris Drake, Senior Research Director, BuyerView Research at IDC, says, "IDC expects data sovereignty and industry compliance considerations to be of increasing importance to decisions about the design, operation, and management of IT architectures, including the selection of cloud service providers.

"This partly reflects the growing importance of regulation, including GDPR, which emphasises the importance of personal data protection and provides specific rules about data storage and transfer."

Drake continues, "Among organisations that expect their IT budgets to increase in the coming year, the vast majority believe that data sovereignty and industry compliance considerations will strongly influence service provider selection decisions and decisions about their primary data centre environments.

"Based on these survey findings, IDC expects data sovereignty and industry compliance considerations to be of increasing importance in decisions about the design, operation, and management of IT architectures (including the selection of cloud service providers).

"This partly reflects the growing importance of regulation - including GDPR, which emphasises the importance of personal data protection and provides specific rules about data storage and transfer."

Data sovereignty is largely unambiguous at this point with rules already in place within the EU and in other jurisdictions about data use, storage, and movement. The evolution of EU data regulation that started with GDPR in 2018 is being extended to the Data Governance Act.

As a result, enterprises need technology solutions that provide a holistic view of how data is collected, classified, processed, and stored to ensure data regulations are being met.

The IDC Survey Spotlight, Data Sovereignty and Compliance Are Poised to Play a Growing Role in Cloud Buyer Selection and Design Decisions, looks at the extent to which data sovereignty and industry compliance considerations are influencing and impacting IT operations and procurement decisions among cloud buyers.