Transnational Companies Must Sell Into Nest Of Cybersecurity Regs

Almost all products now contain digital components, and many can connect to the internet. These products – ranging from talking dolls to medical devices, to software itself – may bring security risks, and regulators worldwide have become acutely aware of the threat. As a result, so-called digital products are subject to increasingly stringent controls, say the authors of this Harvard Business Review article. The consequences of running afoul of these regulations can be devastating, and may include being shut out of a national market, getting “tangled in politics” (Huawei’s 5G products ran into both), or otherwise suffering damage to reputations. For this article, the authors looked at 75 cases in more than 31 countries, to see how this trend is playing out and to come up with a method to anticipate outcomes and “mitigate unfavorable outcomes.”