4 Data-related Priorities for Companies Doing Business in Brazil

For three years now, the Global Tech Trends Survey (GTTS) has interviewed IT decision-makers around the world to understand the priorities and expectations of industry leaders. In 2021, 100 of the IT leaders interviewed were from Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America and one of the countries where the digital transformation is more intense. Those leaders talked about the main priorities and challenges for the year, in addition to answering specific questions related to the arrival of 5G in the country and the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses, providing valuable insights for other companies doing—or planning to do—business in Brazil.

Among the most discussed issues, the ones related to data processing, use and analysis appear as a priority for these executives. The ability to store, protect and analyze the growing amount of information collected from users and connected objects is increasingly seen as essential to develop a good business strategy, better understand the consumer and even make changes in the work structure to reach a more efficient workflow. Issues related to the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) and adaptation to new legal standards are also concerns of IT throughout 2021. In my opinion, it is a big and important challenge that should not be sidelined.

I list below four priorities for companies doing digital business in Brazil for the use of data identified in the GTTS:

1. Get more data for business strategies

 Analyzing and using data is a great way to understand and meet the experience expected by consumers. GTTS showed that IT decision-makers in Brazil are aware of this scenario: 85% of them expect to get more data for business strategies, a percentage way above the global average of 66%.

Just as the volume of data generated from smartphones, connected objects, sensors, social media and e-commerce sites, among others, grows every year, the volume collected by companies also follows.

2. Generate more insights from the data

Simply obtaining large volumes of data does not add strategic value, which brings us to the next priority detected by the survey: 81% of IT leaders in Brazil want to generate more insights from the data they collect, which is above the global average of 69% found by the survey. In other words, following a global trend, the urgency to not only gather data but to do predictive analysis is stronger than ever in the country, including due to the needs that came up during the pandemic.

3. Manage data exchange locally

If you need to do this type of management in your company, you will agree that the challenges involved are undeniable, starting with the adequacy of the IT infrastructure. Doing processing and analysis in an on-premises data center or in the cloud far away from where the data is generated has serious latency and cost implications. If there is a significant distance between the edge and the data center and it is distributed in dozens or hundreds of different locations, the network must also be distributed, in order to be close to each of these points and enable the storage, processing and real-time data analysis.

It is precisely for this reason that 81% of IT decision-makers surveyed in Brazil expressed a desire to be able to manage data exchange locally—again above the average (63%). The edge is increasingly part of the business strategy, and research like ours corroborates this perception.

4. Compliance with the General Data Protection Law

 Of course, another point that attracts the attention of businesses currently or thinking about operating in Brazil is the LGPD, in force since September 2020 and with application of sanctions allowed since August 1, 2021, which establishes rules for the entire national territory on how to assign, transfer, sell or store data. The regulation is very similar to the General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), guaranteeing the person’s rights over their data and stipulating the necessary actions—some of them immediate—if a leak occurs.

GTTS also showed that it is a priority for 84% of IT decision-makers in the country to comply with the LGDP throughout the year, which happens in parallel with the significant increase in the amount of personal information circulating on their networks and platforms.

With privacy laws being enacted in many countries, I believe that, in a short time, we will see a change in the mindset of both individuals and companies about the concepts and implications of collecting, sharing and analyzing user data.

Distribute your network on the edge and extract value from data securely

It is a fact that we are moving toward a data-driven economy, as are the risks associated with it. To succeed, a company needs to join a rich ecosystem and connect to the appropriate partners, no matter where they are. Across the globe, we see IT strategy quickly becoming less about building technology than it is about accessing the right partner ecosystems and integrating the right digital building blocks. To do that, you can count on Equinix.

Whether you are a multinational company doing business in Brazil or a Brazilian company doing business overseas, you can join Platform Equinix® to bring together all the right places, partners and possibilities to create the foundational infrastructure you need to succeed and find new opportunities to innovate and create business value.

Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers are interconnection hubs close to user devices and public clouds, enabling the processing and analysis of data via private connections securely and with low latency. You can even count on software-defined solutions offered on demand to assemble infrastructure in minutes in 63 global markets, a number that we are continuously increasing.

No one can say for sure which businesses will be successful in retail, manufacturing or healthcare 20 years from now, or what our next global challenge will be, like the COVID-19 pandemic. What is within reach of the leaders is to try to capture signals about the market needs, the challenges and the solutions adopted with regard to the digital infrastructure, both from a global point of view as well as from specific markets. At Equinix, research such as the GTTS helps us to identify these signs and develop the best solution we can offer for each challenge imposed. For our clients, we hope that the survey will be a source of information and inspiration in the process of drawing up scenarios so they can be better prepared to react to changes, whether gradual or sudden, local or global.

Check out the Global Tech Trends Survey 2020-21.