Data sovereignty widens from a legal to economic pitch

Data sovereignty has moved from being seen as just a legal issue for customers to a wider opportunity that the channel can tap into as demand continues to increase.

Geopolitical issues, concerns around the location of data from a legal and security perspective, and the pressure to provide increased access to artificial intelligence (AI) tools have combined to make sovereignty one of the key issues in the cloud world.

OVHcloud has been charting the changing dynamics for its partners and has seen an increased number reacting to customer demand for a sovereign solution.

“What I’m noticing is that a lot of partners...started really considering sovereignty, not just as legal aspects, or all the bureaucracy, but more as a business opportunity,” said Filippo Sanesi, global partner programme director at OVHcloud.

“In the past 12 months, we’ve seen an exponential growth in demand from even very large software vendors, large system integrators, that they’re now approaching the topic not only as a request that some of their customer’s did, but as a business opportunity. They understand that businesses are worried, and they see the value in working with sovereign solutions,” he added.

Sanesi said that customers are increasingly looking for assurances around where their data is stored, and although sovereignty has become a buzzword, the fundamental desire to work with providers that deliver those reassurances continues to rise.

“People are getting more involved in the topic, they demand this back to the software provider, to the tech provider, and that cascades to partners. I see this as a structural change that is happening. These sorts of decisions are reversible, because you can always change cloud, but I see these sorts of values changing more, especially in Europe,” he said.

“Partners want to have a deeper connection with whoever they work with closely. There’s more of a value aspect that goes into having a sovereignty approach because now, finally, people realise that it’s also about the economic impact.”

OVHcloud has advised its channel to take a consultancy approach to guide customers through sovereignty, talking about where data resides and then enabling AI tools to access that information.

“I’m helping partners to present sovereignty to customers. I always say sovereignty should be easy to understand, and it shouldn’t be over engineered or a marketing tool,” said Sanesi. “We are sovereign by design. So, it’s a good selling point, but it’s also very interesting to see this [demand increase].”

Sanesi has been working on ensuring the firm continues to support partners around data sovereignty and the other main market theme of AI.

“You see this race to embrace and adopt AI for productivity, upselling and selling, and so on. The key difference is that AI is a real topic and now not just hype,” he added. “I see partners coming up with real solutions more – concrete solutions that can be deployed. We had tremendous growth in demand, not simply in volume, but of large partners all over the world – not only in France, UK and Germany, but even in Africa and America. The growth is there.”

The door remains open for more partners to sign up to the programme, with Sanesi saying OVHcloud is keen to work with those that add value.

“The market is growing, but we are recognised as a leader on European sovereignty and cloud. This why we have had very big partners in the past two years that joined the programme, and then they’re operating specific verticals, in specific industry, and it’s growing,” he said.