Data sovereignty a growing priority for UK enterprises

The push towards data sovereignty continues, with 51% of UK organizations now acknowledging it as a crucial aspect of their data management strategy.

According to a study of 500 IT decision makers in large organizations carried out by OVHcloud, more than three-quarters said they believe data sovereignty is now more important to their organization than it was three years ago.

However, their views on data sovereignty varied considerably. Four-in-ten said they saw it primarily as a compliance issue, while 36% saw it as a question of data access, handling or storage, and 28% as relating to data portability.

"Forty one percent of UK organizations told us that data sovereignty is simply something to be complied with," said Matt Tebay, multi-cloud evangelist at OVHcloud.

"However, forty two percent said that it was important to customers, and therefore an asset to them and their businesses. This shows a change in how companies have traditionally seen data sovereignty, and an evolution of how they’re approaching it more broadly."

Businesses are willing to pay the extra, with almost two thirds of organizations saying they were happy to pay between 11% and 30% more for a sovereign technology product that would meet all of their regulatory and sovereignty needs.

Only 6.5% said they weren't willing to pay more than normal for a sovereign product.

“Data sovereignty is gaining maturity, but it’s not an easy matter. Twenty-three per cent of IT decision makers told us that they viewed data sovereignty as ‘complex and full of drama’, and 27% said that they thought it was comparable to the hit TV show The Office – and if they didn’t laugh, they’d cry," said Tebay.

"Clearly, the intersection of customer trust, technology, regulation and commercial considerations can make for a challenging journey, but it’s an important one and like all journeys, the first step is the most important."

Data sovereignty is becoming a growing necessity, thanks to concerns over privacy and the potential for data to be accessed by other nation states.

While the EU has been in the lead in introducing regulations, other governments are moving to bring similar rules, including Egypt, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the US.

According to Gartner, by 2027 data sovereignty will be one of the two top criteria, along with sustainability, when evaluating public cloud generative AI services.

"Digital sovereignty will drive the need to include cloud providers that can meet the evolving and unique requirements of sovereign operations no matter the region they operate in," said Sid Nag, vice president analyst at Gartner.