Heading for new shores – The General Data Protection Regulation as an opportunity
But what’s behind the General Data Protection Regulation, also known by its abbreviation, GDPR? The source of this upheaval is the reformation of the 1995 guideline on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. The advancement of globalisation and a denser network of data mean that these guidelines have now become obsolete as a result. The revised decision standardises the rules on the processing of personal data by private companies and public authorities within the European Union. In future, each company that saves personal data on citizens of the EU has to be able to provide information on its storage location and use, while having the person’s consent. This entails profound changes to the management of personal data. What’s the purpose of all this effort? The intention is to better protect people’s rights and freedoms and to guarantee their right to informal self-determination, while the free flow of data within member states of the EU will continue to be supported.
This signifies fundamental changes for companies. But despite the impending challenges, there’s no need to panic, because the GDPR provides the opportunity to eliminate inefficient data management processes, therefore narrowing down costs. The effort of maintaining and administrating duplicated, false and redundant records and marketing operations based on unreliable customer data incurs high costs which can be avoided by standardising data management. This not only helps reduce costs, but also causes companies to have a reliable and accurate overview of each customer and the corresponding data.
While companies may feel alone and clueless faced with a mountain of decreed changes, they’ve not been abandoned when it comes to implementing these changes. For several years, parsionate has supported traders and manufacturers in omnichannel commerce through similar situations with their established and comprehensive process knowhow on master data management combined with profound expertise. parsionate combines all processes and technologies under MDM for the creation, processing and connection of a company’s core data. The aim is to maximise the quality of data, securing it for the long term. The system offers companies diverse added value, enabling them to work in a more efficient and economical way by increasing revenue and market share. It also allows new business models to be added, a topic which is increasingly important to companies in order to remain competitive in the digital age and to set new standards. But before setting new goals, the current status of data management should be fully analysed before the necessary steps are determined in an MDM project plan.
This serves as an ideal foundation for GDPR implementation. It’s a central source for data retention, regardless of whether the data relates to customers, employees, products, services or locations. The data’s reliability and integrity substantiates your trustworthiness, meeting the GDPR requirements for the overview of all personal data. The revised EU regulation assigns everyone the right to accuracy regarding their data. Due to the central assembly of data in the MDM system, it can only be entered into one location. Maintaining data therefore becomes easier, and searching for and entering data into various systems and sources is no longer required when correcting data. Incorrect information is therefore prevented, with the resulting positive effects reflected in customer experience, time-to-market and returns rates.
Nothing stands in the way of companies implementing GDPR with the help of parsionate, apart from themselves. As Vergil once said, only those who believe they can do it succeed. parsionate therefore offers essential support for all sceptics, successfully leading them to the path of the conquerors – even if it is paved with challenges presented by GDPR. There are always opportunities, they just have to be identified and implemented.
The article was originally published in: The Produktkulturmagazin, issue Q4 2017
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Implementing the GDPR
What would a check of the personal data currently held by your business and of the procedures to process them reveal? Do you know where your business stores personal data? In what systems, Excel files and Access databases, in what marketing tools? Are they held centrally or locally? What kind of personal data is stored and where? Are they up-to-date? Who has access to the data? Etc.
Our white paper will help you identify and take the first steps to implement the measures that need to be put into place to ensure that your company is GDPR compliant. Develop an action plan with parsionate and split your task into smaller, manageable sub-projects.
Implementation of the GDPR will require complex business process changes that will affect many different departments of a company. Take advantage of our expertise: we will be happy to support you from the very beginning of your analysis phase. With our GDPR Health Check, we help companies to comprehensively analyse the current status of their data management strategy. Together, we can identify and prioritize the necessary steps with our proven methodology and set up a detailed project plan.
