Introduction
In order to remain relevant and adjust to the needs of customers, as well as introduce innovative solutions, companies must be aware of buyers’ characteristics and demands. For this reason, collecting and storing consumers’ personal data represents a vital step in managing sales and introducing innovations. However, to ensure customers’ personal data security, it is vital to introduce techniques involving both an increase in employees’ digital competence, consumer empowerment and a rise in the levels of the company’s security.
Personal Data Collection
Collecting customers’ personal data is vital for adjusting to their needs and presenting them with solutions that meet their demands accurately. For this reason, the company currently seeks to gather data associated with the customer’s age, sex, and preferences; for the visitors that frequent the company’s website, information such as age, email, shipping location, and feedback on various items that they have purchased is gathered. While some of the information above is neutral and harmless, other types of it are very sensitive, such as customers’ IP addresses and physical locations (Schneider et al., 2017). Therefore, an appropriate PIA assessment for the specified data type collection techniques, as well as the information regarding customers’ age, names, and related issues, must be performed.
Risk to Data
Despite the presence of a rather tight data security framework, the company is presently facing multiple risks with customers’ private data handling. Specifically, there is a threat of accidental sharing when staff members leak customer data by accident (Dileep et al., 2020). Studies show that accidental sharing accounts for a greater range of lost data than the effects of all malware attacks combined (Dileep et al., 2020). Data theft perpetrated by employees intentionally is a less common yet also tangible threat to the privacy of customers’ personal information (Dileep et al., 2020).
Another risk that a company may sustain in the modern digital environment context is the attack of ransomware, which currently represents the main risk for small and medium-size entrepreneurships (SMEs): “1 in 5 reporting that they have fallen victim to a ransomware attack” (Kurtz, 2020, para. 6). Similarly, addressing the existing standards for staff members regarding managing data is crucial. For example, maintaining proper password hygiene should be deemed as vital. Likewise, employee bribery represents a major threat to customers’ data security. Corporate fraud also belongs to the specified category of risks. Finally, low levels of data access ecosystem maintenance may lead to a major security breach. To protect its data, the company should consider educating staff members about the use of digital data management tools, reinforcing the security system, and introducing the idea of incremental improvements as a means of keeping it consistently safeguarded from security breaches.
Justification for New Data Collection
Nevertheless, even with the risks listed above, collecting new data is essential since it will help the company to adjust its services to customers’ needs. Therefore, extra measures to prevent data security breaches must be introduced. First, the risk assessment approach must be tied to the company’s strategic objectives to ensure cohesion and alignment between adopted approaches. Furthermore, to prevent instances of corporate fraud, a behavioral and pattern-based analysis of employees must be carried out regularly. Evaluating the credibility and trustworthiness of business partners is another vital step. Fourth, customers need to be empowered to adopt the strategies that will help them to remain secure, which will require customer education on the company’s part (Schneider et al., 2017). Finally, the organization must invest in data mapping and infrastructure improvement to minimize the risk of cyberattacks (Schneider et al., 2017). Thus, the levels of customer data security will increase.
Conclusion
To protect customers’ personal information, the company will need to integrate tools for employees’ digital competence training along with the investment in the improvement of risk assessment and mitigation techniques and consumer empowerment. Thus, the risks associated with the probability of personal data leakage caused by human factor, corporate fraud, or a dent in the digital security framework will be safely avoided. As a result, the organization will protect its customers and improve its performance.
References
Dileep, K., Venkatesh, R., Kumar, B. S., Rao, K. U., & Kshatra, D. P. (2020). Analysis of data breaches and their impact on organizations. International Journal, 8(10), 6989-6994.
Kurtz, J. (2020). 20 Cybersecurity statistics manufacturers can’t ignore. National Institute for Standards in Technology.
Schneider, M. J., Jagpal, S., Gupta, S., Li, S., & Yu, Y. (2017). Protecting customer privacy when marketing with second-party data. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(3), 593-603.