It might seem ominous at first, but GDPR might not be the White Walker we all feared it to be. In fact, we might end up embracing it.
In May 2018, GDPR will need to be adopted by all organisations operating within the EU. We use data for everything—whether it’s for compliance reasons, generating insights from user behaviour, and for revenue-generation. Thanks to lengthy T’s and C’s that customers never actually get around to reading, businesses have been using customer data without their knowledge. Our data can end up in a lot of unexpected places.The GDPR is going to end all of that. Companies need to get onboard with GDPR if they want to stay competitive. According to My Customer, “only 5% of marketers say they wholly understand what GDPR means for their business, whilst 50% say they don’t know anything about the regulation.
How GDPR can actually benefit companies
Most companies can’t look beyond the compliance requirements of GDPR. If you’re seeing it as a drawback, instead of as an opportunity–it’s time to change your perspective. With the GDPR in place, companies will need to take extra care about how data is collected, used and shared, as well as give consumers better control of their data. You might be wondering, how does this benefit businesses? Well, it will encourage companies to consolidate personal data into a unified platform, making data easily accessible, as well as anonymise and report on it if needed. Businesses will now have the insights to better respond to customer requests, engage with them more effectively, and ultimately innovate. GDPR is shifting the market in the digital economy. The ball is now in the customer’s court, and if you want to succeed as a business, you need to use GDPR as an opportunity to improve your customer relationships.
With GDPR, you’re forced to create a data operational strategy. A data-centric approach will benefit organisations at an enterprise level—especially when it comes to security, data localisation and indexing, data storage, and customer centricity. In a recent study done by Gartner, businesses reported losing $8.8 million annually on average because of poor data quality.
So instead of seeing GDPR as a compliance challenge, look at it as a particular set of data that needs to be managed in a certain way. Does your team have the ability to enact a data governance strategy? Can they use that data for marketing or customer experience initiatives? GDPR will make it necessary to get your data in order and raise the game of digital marketing. With improved strategies, the way marketers interact with individuals will improve too. And rich customer experiences will essentially lead to an increase in sales—that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
If you want to improve your data strategy, GCL can supply you with new, fully compliant, opted-in data. If you want to know more about GDPR, download our guide.
