Data sovereignty may cost something

Data sovereignty is increasingly becoming a key criterion in the selection of IT solutions. For three quarters of companies in the Czech Republic, it is important that their data is stored within the European Union. More than half would even be prepared to accept higher costs for this. These are the findings of a recent SAP survey of 350 managers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Almost two thirds of the companies surveyed also want to take data sovereignty into account when selecting IT providers in the future.

„Today, companies in the Czech Republic no longer only pay attention to the price or performance of technologies, but increasingly also to who they entrust with control over their data. This is a fundamental change,“ says Hana Součková, General Director of SAP Czech Republic. „Data sovereignty is evolving from a marginal issue to a strategic decision criterion for the entire company.“

Companies particularly often prefer a model in which only sensitive data categories are stored in a so-called sovereign cloud. For this approach, 36% of respondents would accept a surcharge. The complete storage of all company data in a sovereign cloud at a higher cost would be chosen by 15% of managers.

Younger people are driving the issue forward

In Slovakia, approval of data sovereignty is even more pronounced than in the Czech Republic. While three quarters of managers in the Czech Republic rate the topic as important, 87% in Slovakia do so.

The biggest difference between the two countries can be seen among managers aged 45 to 53. In the Czech Republic, this is the age group with the lowest level of approval (69%), while in Slovakia 93% of respondents rated the topic as important.

However, the lower level of approval in this age group does not mean a rejection of data sovereignty. Rather, it indicates greater uncertainty. Only for one in eleven respondents does the exclusive storage of data within the European Union play no role when choosing an IT provider. At the same time, 38 percent are still undecided as to whether they will take this criterion into account in future. There is also greater uncertainty in large companies. One in three managers in companies with more than 250 employees have not yet taken a clear position on the issue of a sovereign cloud. Uncertainty is significantly lower in SMEs.

„Companies in the Czech Republic today
increasingly also on who they give control
about their data.”

Hana Součková,
Managing Director,
SAP Czech Republic

Not just the public sector

„Data sovereignty encompasses far more than just the storage of data,“ explains Miroslav Pavlas, expert for sovereign cloud solutions and the public sector at SAP. „Today, companies are intensively concerned with the question of who has access to their systems, how regulatory requirements can be met and what dependencies arise from non-European providers.“

Sensitive financial data

Companies in the Czech Republic are particularly sensitive about financial data. 40 percent of respondents would prefer to store this data in European data centers. This is followed by operational and supply chain data (34 percent) and information from IT systems and security infrastructures (26 percent). Customer and marketing data, on the other hand, have the lowest priority. Less than one in five companies would explicitly insist on storage within the EU. The picture is different in Slovakia, where operational and supply chain data is the top priority (31%), followed by financial data (29%) and research and development data (25%). The data was collected via the Instant Research platform of the market research agency Ipsos. (Source: SAP)