Most organizations have invested, and continue to invest in people, processes, technology and policies to meet customer privacy requirements and avoid significant fines and other penalties. In addition, data breaches continue to expose the personal information of millions of people, and therefore organizations are concerned about the products they buy, services they use, people they employ, and with whom they partner and generally do business with. As a result, customers are asking more questions during the buying cycle about how their data is captured, used, transferred, shared, stored, and destroyed. In last year’s study (Cisco 2018 Privacy Maturity Benchmark Study), Cisco introduced data and insights regarding how these privacy concerns were negatively impacting the buying cycle and timelines. This year’s research updates those findings and explores the benefits associated with privacy investment. Cisco’s Data Privacy Benchmark Study utilizes data from Cisco’s Annual Cybersecurity Benchmark Study, a double blind survey completed by more than 3200 security professionals in 18 countries and across all major industries and geographic regions. Many of the privacy specific questions were addressed to more than 2900 respondents who were familiar with the privacy processes at their organizations. Participants were asked about their readiness for GDPR, any delays in the sales cycle due to customer data privacy concerns, losses from data breaches, and their current practices related to maximizing the value of their data. The findings from this study provide strong evidence that organizations are benefitting from their privacy investments beyond compliance. Organizations that are ready for GDPR are experiencing shorter delays in their sales cycle related to customers’ data privacy concerns than those that are not ready for GDPR. GDPR ready organizations have also experienced fewer data breaches, and when breaches have occurred, fewer records were impacted and system downtime was shorter. As a result, the total cost of data breaches was less than what organizations not ready for GDPR experienced. Even though companies have focused their efforts on meeting privacy regulations and requirements, nearly all companies say they are receiving other business benefits from these investments beyond compliance. These privacy-related benefits are providing competitive advantages to organizations, and this study can help guide investment decisions as organizations work to mature their privacy processes. The Results GDPR readiness Among all respondents in the Data Privacy Benchmark Study, 59% indicated that they are meeting all or most of GDPR’s requirements today. Another 29% said they expect to be GDPR ready within a year, leaving 9% who said it would take more than a year to get ready. While GDPR applies to businesses located in the EU or to the processing of personal data collected about individuals located in the EU, it is interesting that only 3% of the respondents in our global survey indicated that they did not believe GDPR applied to their organization. By country, the level of GDPR readiness ranged from 42% to 76%. Not surprisingly, the European countries in the survey (Spain, Italy, UK, France, Germany) were generally on the higher end of the range. Respondents were asked to identify the most significant challenges their organizations faced in getting ready for GDPR. The top responses were data security, internal training, evolving regulations, and privacy by design requirements. Sales delays due to privacy Respondents were asked whether they are experiencing delays in their sales cycles due to customers’ data privacy concerns. 87% of respondents said they do have sales delays, whether from existing customers or prospects. This is significantly higher than the 66% of respondents who reported sales delays in last year’s survey and is likely due to the increased awareness of the importance of data privacy, GDPR becoming enforceable, and the emergence of other privacy laws and requirements. Data privacy has become a board-level issue for many organizations, and customers are making sure their vendors and business partners have adequate answers to their privacy concerns before doing business together. When asked about the length of the delay, the estimates varied widely. The average delay for sales to existing customers was 3.9 weeks, and over 94% of organizations reported delays between 0 and 10 weeks. Nonetheless, there were some organizations reporting delays up to 25 to 50 weeks or more. Note that the average delay for sales to prospects was 4.7 weeks, perhaps reflecting the longer timeframes needed to adequately address privacy concerns in a new potential customer relationship. These average delays for both existing customers and prospects are significantly shorter than the average of 7.8 weeks reported in last year’s survey, perhaps reflecting the fact that firms have become better equipped over the last year to answer customer’s privacy concerns. By country, the distribution of sales delays for existing customers ranged from 2.2 weeks to 5.5 weeks. Longer delays can usually be found where privacy requirements are high or in a state of transition, as organizations work to adapt to the concerns raised by their customers. Sales delays, at a minimum, cause revenue to be deferred for some period of time. This can lead to missed revenue targets, impacting compensation, funding decisions, and investor relations. In addition, delayed sales can often turn into lost sales, for instance, when delays cause a potential customer to buy a competitor’s product or not buy the product or service at all. Respondents were also asked to identify the reasons for any privacy-related sales delays at their organizations. The top responses included the need to investigate specific customer requests, translating privacy information into the customer’s language, educating the customer about the company’s privacy practices or processes, or having to redesign the product to meet the customer’s privacy requirements. Business benefits of privacy investments Organizations that have invested in getting ready for GDPR have done so primarily to avoid the significant fines and other penalties associated with not meeting the regulation. However, as the research indicates, there are other significant business benefits associated with these privacy investments. In looking at the sales delays due to privacy issues, the average delay for selling to existing customers was 3.9 weeks. However, those…

Security needs collaboration at individual, organizational, industrial, national and global levels. Networking and knowledge sharing are the key drivers for mitigating challenges in today’s security environment. India faces varied business risks – from public protests to floods, causing damage to life, property and businesses. In 2018, protests and civil unrests saw a wave of new-age student protests, populist issues protests, unrest against private organizations and even identity-based violence. Vigilante violence aimed at religious minorities and marginalized communities allegedly carried out by right-wing groups became an increasing threat in India in 2018. In addition to civil unrests, natural disasters led to severe destruction of infrastructure and life in 2018. Reportedly, close to 600 people were killed in Kerala and Assam after the floods in 2018. The country also witnessed instances of high air pollution, cloudbursts, and landslides in several states. Weather phenomena like dust storms, floods and multiple flight cancellations due to dense fog have led to concerns over the infrastructural ability of the country to handle natural disasters. 2019 will be critical for security professionals due to the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in the months of April-May. As we move into 2019, security professionals are likely to face dynamic and more evolving security threats worldwide. Terrorism and geopolitical stress, along with other traditional security threats, will remain an area of concern along with non-traditional threats in both the physical and cyber realms. Overall business climate for 2019 India’s economic growth has progressed in the last two years. This can be attributed to numerous reforms adopted by the government making India the world’s fastest growing economy, accounting for about 15% of the global growth in 2018. With the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and with an increasing amount of investments by the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted a growth rate of over 7.5% post-March 2019. Along with this rise, India was also ranked higher in the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) ranking, and the third largest start-up base in the world with over 4,750 technology start-ups. With respect to banking operations in the country, the central government along with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has taken major steps to improve the banks’ recognition of bad assets and to recapitalize public sector banks. The Government of India has also decided to invest INR 2.11 trillion (USD 32.9 billion) to recapitalise public sector banks over the next two years. In 2019, two initiatives driven by the Centre namely the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ would be playing a pivotal role in India’s economic growth. Under the Make in India initiative, the Indian government is aiming to accelerate the growth rate to 25% of the gross domestic product (GDP) from the current 17%. Under the regulatory framework, all Indian states are on reform and fast growth trajectory, creating favourable conditions for investments and a benign supportive regulatory framework. For achieving these goals, businesses in India are likely to face major hurdles from all the sectors, and India will also have to work strategically to meet the fiscal deficit target for the year. Top business risks Economic Risks Strong economic growth in a few countries has created an imbalance for the emerging markets and has put pressure on their currencies. India has been no exception to this trend with the rupee coming under economic stress and the crude oil bill on the rise. The country’s current account deficit is widening and it is expected to continue growing larger over the next few months. Meanwhile, India has made progress in the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) index and the skill development sector. India’s world-beating economic growth is running up against some big risks like high oil prices, emerging market stress as the era of easy money draws to a close, and policy paralysis in the run-up to the 2019 general election. However, the economist intelligence unit forecasts India’s growth to be at 7.4%, throughout 2019. The next government will take charge in a less than ideal economic environment and will have significant challenges to take the economy back into the stable zone, let alone a double-digit growth rate. The Indian economy is at an interesting stage. In the last few years, structural reforms like GST implementation, demonetisation, insolvency laws, auctioning of public resources, digitisation, expansion of the tax base have created short-term pains in terms of disruptions and high compliance cost. The long-term benefits of these reforms are likely to accrue in 2019 and beyond. The Indian economy looks well-poised for 2019 with low inflation, fairly-valued rupee, under-control fiscal and current account deficits, and transparency in the banking system. Oil price movement will continue to play a crucial role in performance of the Indian economy. The forex reserves of the country at nearly USD400 billion also provides adequate buffer to external sector vulnerabilities.  Environment Risks I n 2018, India witnessed a series of extreme weather phenomena like floods, dust storms, air pollution, cloudbursts and landslides in several states. The Global Climate Risk Index of 2018 ranks India as the 12th most vulnerable country in the world to climate change impacts. In 2018, Mumbai, Chennai, Kerala and Delhi-NCR witnessed heavy rainfall and waterlogging, which disrupted business operations. Floods also led to over a thousand fatalities in several states including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka. Kerala witnessed one of the worst floods in South Asia in 2018, where over 1.4 million people took shelter in relief camps and there were close to 500 casualties. Due to the rise in temperature, dust storms were reported in multiple north Indian states. In 2019, the weather situation is likely to worsen due to global warming and drastically changing climatic conditions. Although, the United Nations backed fund has approved USD43.4 million for enhancing climate resilience for citizens in coastal states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha, India lacks the adequate implementation infrastructure. Rainfall, floods and dust storms are likely to continue into 2019…