While companies around the world have always been tasked with ensuring data privacy, that task has gone from important to crucial. Every other day, data privacy regulators are popping up around the world, while existing ones are becoming stricter. In particular, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which regulates the use of data within Europe, is known to be the strictest privacy law in the world. It is characterized by high fines – up to €20 million or 4% of the company's annual global turnover – strict consent requirements and enhanced rights for data subjects. This means that companies seeking global expansion must comply with multiple regulatory authorities simultaneously. Therefore, companies must ensure that responsible data management and use is enforced across their organizations. Effective dates governance is now an absolute must.
WHAT IS DATA GOVERNANCE IN CDP?
Data governance is the overall management of the availability, usability, and security of the data an organization has access to. For data management to be effective, the data collected must be accurate, complete and consistent. In addition, the data must be used in ways that are consistent with the goals and objectives of the brand and the legal provisions. Only when these criteria are met can companies maximize the potential of the data they hold while staying on the right side of the laws governing the collection and use of information in the areas where their customers live.
Customer Data Platform (CDP) software is a robust tool that pulls data from various sources such as email, social media, websites, etc. The global CDP market is worth billions of dollars and growing at a CAGR of 34%, which shows how much the business world is embracing the software. Being a central source of vast amounts of customer data that is integral to business operations, effective data management is integral to maximizing the software's functionality and long-term value.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF EFFECTIVE DATA GOVERNANCE?
As mentioned earlier, proper management of customer data throughout its lifecycle is the only way a company can achieve its goals and objectives for adopting the CDP. Here are some of the benefits it offers a company:
BETTER DATA QUALITY
The better the quality of data, the richer and more useful the insights generated by processing and analysis. Effective data management ensures that the data within a CDP is clean and accurate, without duplications and errors. Consequently, the brand has access to accurate and reliable information and can be confident that its insights are useful in the real world.
IMPROVED DATA SECURITY
Data leaks lead to financial losses and the loss of customer confidence, among other things. That's why every brand should put an emphasis on securing customer data. Data governance is useful because it involves the development of comprehensive data security policies and enforcement throughout the organization.
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
The consequences of breaking data privacy regulations can set many companies back years. Ensuring strict compliance is therefore a wise decision. Effective data management helps brands comply with regulatory laws such as GDPR, CCPA, PIPEDA and many others.
INFORMED DECISION-MAKING
When a company consistently generates accurate insights, the quality of decision making is bound to improve. Efficient management of data will lead to the development of better sales strategies and marketing campaigns, while also improving the delivery of personalization to the customers.
WHAT ARE THE BEST STRATEGIES TO ENSURE EFFECTIVE DATA GOVERNANCE?
Efficient data management is a product of conscious and strategic planning. Organizations determined to enjoy the benefits of good data governance must be prepared to put in the necessary work to achieve this across the organization. Here are five great strategies that can help your brand manage data in the best way possible:
CLEARLY OUTLINE ALL DATA POLICIES
The journey to effective data governance begins with building a watertight data policy that will guide all data-related activities within your company. This includes the collection, retention, sources and types of data. The data policy should also address the important aspect of how much access each employee has to the database. Therefore, all key stakeholders of the company should be present during the preparation of these important guidelines.
After the data policy has been established, all team members should be clear about the company's purpose for collecting data and about the ideal collection methods and sources. The policy should also specify how long data is retained and conditions for deletion of data to ensure that information is not retained longer than necessary. In addition, the policy should help limit access to data by defining data access controls and authorization protocols. Data management becomes much easier across the board when all these guidelines are well defined. Finally, these policies should be reviewed and updated regularly so that they are useful in the long run.
GIVE PRIORITY TO REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
Data governance can never be effective if the established policy is not in accordance with the supervisory authorities. Failure to comply can lead to hefty fines. Even worse, it can destroy the company's reputation and permanently damage customer confidence. Therefore, the company must be proactive to ensure compliance is effective to achieve data governance.
For starters, the company simply allocates employees to enforce laws from agencies such as GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA and advises on strategies to be implemented to stay within the boundaries of the law. For example, CCPA states that customers must retain the right to view and delete their personal data. Therefore, companies operating in their territory must include options that give customers this right. Likewise, brands must monitor changes in these laws and conduct regular audits to ensure compliance.
IMPLEMENT DATA QUALITY CONTROL
The quality of the data fed into a CDP has a significant impact on the performance of the software, which in turn influences decision making. Therefore, the implementation of robust data quality controls and regular monitoring and update should be enforced across the business. All data must be validated and sanitized to ensure that only accurate data is entered into the system. Data profiling, which involves analyzing data for patterns and anomalies, is another aspect of data quality checks that cannot be ignored. Implementing strong data quality controls will ensure a constant delivery of reliable insights to key decision makers.
STRICTLY CONTROL DATA USAGE
If a company wants to stay on top of data security, monitoring data usage should be a top priority. By keeping track of how and by whom data is accessed, there is the greatest chance that data leaks and breaches will be stopped early. For example, an employee suddenly trying to access data above their approval level is a clear sign of danger that can be identified early and investigated if strict data usage tracking is part of the brand's data governance culture. Regular monitoring also includes the welcome bonus of helping brands comply with data privacy laws by quickly identifying and correcting potential errors.
TRAIN ALL STAFF
Effective data governance involves all team members from the top down. It would therefore be unrealistic to expect good data management if not all employees have received the necessary information. This starts with conducting seminars and workshops to educate employees about the organization's written policies regarding data management. Also, all staff should be trained in handling the personal and sensitive data held within it CDP kept to prevent accidental leakage of customer data. In addition, they must learn how to contribute to data quality management by identifying errors and standardizing data formats. Communicating standards and expectations to them can help employees become more aware of their role in ensuring data protection and governance.
In conclusion, effective data governance is highly beneficial to businesses as it ensures better data quality and more robust data security, while improving the reliability of the insights they generate. Therefore, companies must implement these and other strategies to achieve their short-term and long-term goals.
