Businesses are adapting to what a Pricewaterhouse Coopers report refers to as ‘the new reality. The report highlights five major forces that affect businesses in the post-covid-19 era. One stands out and meets the demand of this piece, and that is: “declining trust in institutions”. Maintaining customers’ trust is critical to any organisation, and one of the ways companies can achieve this is through their data protection framework.
The Pricewaterhouse Coopers report further reveals that remote collaboration worldwide would reach 78%, while business automation will get more than 78% globally. That implies that companies will digitise their processes, promote online co-existence and focus on building safe digital ecosystems. However, these new requirement places demand on companies. Companies must ask pertinent questions: how safe is data-in-transit, data-at-rest and do we have accompanying features to protect data?
The acceleration of digital trends welcomed an era of remodelling traditional business structures to online functionalities and opening doors to regulations. As a result, organisations need to understand that building the proper data protection frameworks can enable business AS-IS and promote business TO-BE while still building trust.
Digital trust in these contemporary times is a currency that businesses must earn as customers are shifting to online solutions, exploring alternative options of doing things and at the same time looking for companies with the proper data management structure.
One of the core tenets of data protection is transparency. It is vital to be clear about the end-to-end management of data within any company. Companies can achieve this via their company’s websites, public announcement and other available means.
According to recent research, customers want to know how companies manage their data and only those companies that can provide complete information gain customers’ loyalty. For instance, I would wish my bank to tell me how they will secure my data in easy ways. A transparent company in this era will succeed.
A company can gain the customer’s trust by handing some control and autonomy back to the customers. This control and freedom require the company to provide the customer with confident choices regarding their data. There are specific data subject rights that customers possess. For example, a data subject can ask a company to provide all information they have about her, and the company must be able to offer this particular data. When a data subject asks, and that company fails to provide such information, then that builds distrust.
Security is the backbone of any data protection framework. A security breach shatters customers trust. British Airways, Equifax, Facebook, are some big companies that have experienced a security breach, and it significantly affected their reputation and share prices. Preventing data breaches is imperative in maintaining customers. Security plays its role in building a brand. Recently, a Nigerian bank experienced a security breach that leads some customers to leave and, consequently, led to losing revenue.
Sometimes, most company stakeholders want to know the return on investment of data privacy. One of the key ROIs of data privacy is converting customers into long customers and allowing the company’s marketers to boast about its credibility when it comes to protecting the data in their possession. By following the tenets in data privacy, companies can see the long-term benefits of data privacy in other business areas and further boost a company’s brand.
If over 80% of businesses are going to exist in the digital space and if the future is digital, it beholds company stakeholders to maintain customer trust by implementing the proper data privacy frameworks and fighting against contributing to the declining customer trusts.