The Impact of EU GDPR on EU SMEs Competitive Advantage

The Impact of EU GDPR on EU SMEs' Competitive Advantage By: Syed Hassan, DBA Candidate UNINETTUNO E-Mail: h.syed1@students.uninettunouniversity.net Abstract Global economies have transformed into digital economies since the World Wide Web entered the public domain in the 1990s. The services offered by the smallest businesses to the largest global corporations rely on the access, storage and processing of consumer data. Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) create opacity about the true ownership of data. The monetizing of consumer data at all levels has changed the face of technology innovations. This applies equally to the business-to-business and business-to-consumer segments of the data economy. European Unions (“EU”) Small and Medium Enterprises (“SMEs”) are the backbone of the EU economy. EU SMEs employ over 110 million Europeans out of the total workforce of 190 million workers between the ages of 24-65 years as of 2023. EU SMEs comprise 99% of all business enterprises in EU-27. EU SMEs are heavily reliant on consumer data for their productivity and competitive advantage in a technology-driven global consumer market. The objective of EU business regulations and directives is to harmonise and promote ease of business for EU SMEs across the 27-nation trading block. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on May 15th 2018. Personal data protection is a fundamental human right under the EU Law. The scope of GDPR is to protect the personal data of EU consumers, however, GDPR directly impacts the businesses within the EU and businesses handling EU personal data internationally. This makes GDPR a unique law that has ushered in an era of business law that has international reach. GDPR directly impacts the US$1 trillion data market, which comprises personal data from EU-27 within the US$ 3 trillion global data market. There is limited research and data currently available to ascertain the impact of GDPR on EU SMEs. This research aims to contribute to and bridge this gap. The research studies the impact of GDPR on the EU SMEs. This research hypothesises that GDPR directly impacts the competitiveness of the EU SMEs within the global digital economy. Keywords: EU SME, GDPR, EU Personal Data, EU Data Regulation, Competitive Advantage, Data Economy