Is Data Privacy the New Strategic Priority for Businesses?

A recent report from Forrester Consulting, commissioned by IBM, makes the case that data privacy is the new strategic priority for many businesses. Data privacy is undoubtedly a priority for consumers who are tired of having their personal data used by big companies. These consumers are worried about their privacy and want to take more control over their data. In fact, 70% of Americans feel that their personal information is less secure than it was five years ago, which worries them.

Should data privacy be a strategic priority for your business? The short answer: absolutely.

Data Privacy Should Be a Strategic Priority

Data privacy is important to consumers, and it should be equally important to businesses. Making data privacy a priority is not only essential from a legal and regulatory standpoint; it’s also good business. Your customers want their data to remain private and secure, and you win their trust – and their future business – by treating their data with the respect it deserves.

It’s a perfect storm of regulations meeting customer demand. You have to meet the data protection guidelines, of course, but that alone isn’t enough to assuage your customers. You need to go above and beyond the regulations in a way that earns your customers’ trust and respect. If your data privacy policies are merely reactive to what’s legally required, your customers will abandon you for competitors that take their privacy more seriously. To remain competitive and best serve your customers, data privacy has to become a strategic priority.

If you do it right – if you commit to keeping your customers’ information private and secure – you will realize a wealth of benefits. You can’t afford to play catch up with data privacy. You have to get ahead of the game and give customers what they want. That means total transparency about how you collect and use customer data, ensuring a high level of privacy for that data, and providing customers with control over their data.

Complying with Data Privacy Regulations

Your business needs to comply with all relevant data privacy laws and regulations. These laws differ from country to country and from industry to industry, but complying with these regulations is literally the bare minimum you can do regarding data privacy.

Only ensuring compliance isn’t enough, however. Data privacy regulations typically lag behind real-world developments; malicious actors are constantly developing new ways to breach company data and use that data for their own purposes. Not only is complying with regulations a priority, so is staying abreast of new developments in the world of cybersecurity. You need to ensure – and assure your customers – that the data you collect is used legally and is secure from cyber attacks.

Meeting Customer Expectations

Customers today are more aware of data privacy than they have been in the past — 84% of consumers say they care about the privacy of their own data and the data of others in society. They also want more control over how companies use their personal data.

Knowing this, meeting customer expectations about data privacy needs to be a strategic priority. If your company isn’t transparent about collecting and using customer data, you will lose customers. If your data privacy policy is not as pro-consumer as your customers expect, you will lose customers. If you don’t give customers some control over how you use their data, you will lose them.

Prioritizing Data Privacy Has Multiple Benefits

Making data privacy a strategic priority takes time and money. What will you gain from those efforts?

First, by complying with all appropriate data privacy regulations, you gain the peace of mind that you won’t be fined or otherwise penalized for being noncompliant. Data privacy laws are important, and you have to prioritize them.

Second, you gain the trust of your customer base – and customer trust is invaluable. If customers know you treat their data seriously, they will trust you in other aspects of business, as well.

Third, over time, you should gain more customers and increase your sales. Showing that you care about your customers will pay off in the long term.

Let Wickr Help You Prioritize Data Privacy

Wickr is a secure communications and collaboration platform. By employing industry-leading end-to-end encryption, Wickr ensures that all communications remain private, even in transit. Wickr also uses ephemeral messaging, with “burn on read” technology that automatically deletes the entire message after it has been received, ensuring that there is no private data to be compromised.

Contact us today to learn more about Wickr’s commitment to data privacy.