The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the seminal album by the greatest rock n' roll band of all time, turned 50 years old at the start of this summer. Curiously, the album came just at the time the Beatles quit touring for good, and the album's genius was sparked by creativity and outside-the-box thinking at a key career turning point for the band.

In many ways, the struggle to adapt to the requirements of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) presents many organizations with a similar turning point: Become creative and innovative in the approach to significant data protection requirements, or face crippling potential fines and severe limitations in the global scope of business.

Unfortunately, all indications point to the fact that compliance efforts have been slow, or non-existent, for both EU-based and US-based companies alike. An extensive Varonis poll from late spring 2017 revealed that 52 percent of organizations face significant challenges in identifying the extent and locations of personal data and PII in their systems, and nearly 75 percent will likely struggle to meet all GDPR requirements by the May 2018 implementation deadline. As could be expected, small and medium size businesses face the most significant hurdles toward compliance. In a typical day in the life of smaller-sized businesses, there just simply isn't the manpower, expertise nor time available to properly devote to GDPR readiness.