A campaign by Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) to help 5.7 million small businesses be data ready started earlier this week. FSB research shows that over a third of small businesses have not yet started preparing for the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A further third are only in the early stages of preparations and only eight per cent of small businesses have completed their preparations.
Considering the findings, FSB is launching a GDPR awareness raising campaign, dubbed ‘BeDataReady’ in the run up to the 25 May deadline.
A sector breakdown shows that hospitality businesses are amongst the least prepared, with more than half of respondents not yet even started with preparing for the changes.
Unsurprisingly the research shows the financial services sector are the most prepared with 82 per cent of respondents having started or completed their GDPR preparations.
Mike Cherry, FSB National Chairman, said:
“FSB is in a unique position to reach small businesses and so we’re going to step up efforts to help and support them get data ready, while continuing to make sure the Government implements the regulation in the fairest way for small firms.
“The GDPR is the biggest shake-up in data protection to date and many small businesses will be concerned that the changes will be too much to handle. It’s clear that a large part of the small business community is still unaware of the steps that they need to take to comply and may be left playing catch-up.”
We spoke with Kathryn Bennet, Managing Director, 2414 Group, GDPR specialists in the hospitality sector. Kathryn said:
‘After having trained over 500 companies to date in GDPR and providing ongoing consultancy to many more, these statistics from FSB don’t surprise the team here, and it isn’t just restricted to small firms.
We are seeing medium to large businesses that also haven’t started their GDPR preparation journey.
Getting full and independent knowledge of what is required and training in how to deal with GDPR is the best first step.
If any H&C News readers feel they would like any advice on GDPR please call me on 01344 666035 or email info@2414blue.com
Kathryn Bennett, Managing Director, 2414 Group
