The Business Case for Data Protection, conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Ounce Labs, is the first study to determine what senior executives think about the value proposition of corporate data protection efforts within their organizations. In times of shrinking budgets, it is important for those individuals charged with managing a data protection program to understand how key decision makers in organizations perceive the importance of safeguarding sensitive and confidential information.
The research focused on how aware CEOs and other senior executives are about their organization's data protection efforts, what they believe is the economic justification for investment in a data protection program, how data protection programs support organizational goals, how effective they think their data protection leader is at using objective measures to justify spending and what objective measures should be used.
In this study, we learned that C-level executives believe good data protection practices can support important organizational goals such as compliance, reputation management, and customer trust. However, we also learned that the majority of respondents are not confident in their ability to safeguard sensitive and confidential information. Consequently, C-level executives see the importance of the following: developing a data protection strategy, training employees, temporary employees and contractors to safeguard sensitive data, and reducing potential security flaws within business-critical applications.
Our study also revealed CEOs hold a more positive view about the importance of data protection with respect to meeting organizational goals. For example, CEOs are more likely to believe that data protection increases corporate value. They also are more likely to believe their organizations are successful in preventing data loss or theft.
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