Technology

Posted on December 29, 2018 by staff

Businesses to take data ownership seriously in 2019

Technology

High-profile cyber security breaches in 2018 will make businesses take data ownership more seriously next year.

That is one of several technology predictions made by Tommaso Crackett, investment director at mid-market private equity firm Livingbridge.

Crackett is focused on TMT (technology, media and telecoms) investments, in particular cloud software and services, digital media, internet of things and the future of work.

His role is to identify great businesses and consider how Livingbridge can help them reach their full potential, through implementing new strategies and technologies.

One of his predictions for 2019 is that businesses will start to take data ownership more seriously.

Crackett describes the introduction of GDPR as “a watershed moment” for companies, which caused them to sit up and take stock of all the data they were accumulating about their customers.

“Major cyber security breaches this year, such as the Marriott and British Airways hacks, demonstrate that no business is immune,” he warned.

“Companies will be acutely aware that their data could be targeted by hackers, and will only want to store information that is of importance.”

Crackett expects that, in 2019, businesses will be devoting considerable resources to cyber prevention rather than risk facing fines and “dents to their reputation”.

“As the value and risk in holding data is considered, businesses will be looking to identify and understand which data will provide them with valuable insights and which is ineffective,” he added.

“For this they will need tech solutions that can process and analyse this data at speed, so investment in these technologies should be at an all-time high.”