Evaluation of the Legal Obligation of Clare Applewood
Applewood agreed to protect the privacy of its customers. The contract was legally binding, and the company was expected to perform its legal obligation. Failure to honor the respective agreement means that legal action can be taken against the company. The contract breach will have the following negative impacts on Applewood. First, it will destroy the reputation if customers learn that their data was accessed by third parties, meaning the company has not honored its part of the agreement. Other customers will be reluctant to do business with Applewood since it has previously defaulted on the initial contract with its customers.
Conversely, the injury to the organization’s reputation can have long-lasting effects on the ability of Applewood to attract new customers. Sometimes, breaching a contract such as privacy can expose a business to many challenges. Furthermore, Applewood can lose its customers since competitors already have customer information and can use marketing methods to attract customers to their brands. This will have dire consequences and can make an organization face the law if a default clause is triggered. According to Akdemir (2021), if a breach of contract is severe enough, it can lead to litigation and disputes. Therefore, a business needs to put the best strategies to avoid any breach of contract. If customers realize that an organization breached the initial agreement, the relationship between the two parties will result in negative consequences.
Recommendations
Business entities and customers should understand laws about the privacy of their operations. Businesses should refrain from making some decisions without consulting the appropriate regulations in place. Companies should seek legal advice when in difficult situations outside their control. Specifically, in the case of Applewood, third parties accessed customer information which is against their policy. Under the privacy law, customers may be entitled to compensation if an organization fails to put the proper measures in place. In addition, businesses should put data security experts in charge to take care of customers’ data. Each organization should have an ethics hotline, which reports to management in case of any security issue to implement the proper security measures.
Businesses should provide enough resources and education to their employees on how to keep customer information secure. If businesses amend their code of ethics, it would be easy for employees to gain extra information and change. Security experts should be given knowledge on high-security approaches that ensure a full security of customer information. Organizations should provide additional educational opportunities to their employees to successfully implement policy changes (Kubasek et al., 2021). Ideally, managers should implement a consistent system that handles ethical concerns in the workplace, and all employees should adhere to the same to avoid any breaches. Sometimes, employees’ actions contribute to security data breaches which in turn affect the whole process. However, it is essential to accept that companies can never be entirely free of challenges; however, the proper measures can minimize such ethical issues.
Technological advancements have negatively affected the business world. Since many businesses depend on technology entirely, data breaches, glitches, and power failures can negatively affect profitability. For example, access to customer information can create a significant issue since the data can be sold to competitors; in turn, a business will fail (Szakonyi et al., 2021). Therefore, an organization should put the proper measures in place to handle such situations.
References
Akdemir, N. (2021). Coping with Identity Theft and Fear of Identity Theft in the Digital Age. In Legal Challenges in the New Digital Age (pp. 176-197). Brill Nijhoff.
Kubasek, N. K., Browne, M. N., Herron, D. J., Dhooge, L. J., & Barkacs, L. L. (2021). Dynamic business law (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Szakonyi, A., Leonard, B., & Dawson, M. (2021). Dark Web: A Breeding Ground for ID Theft and Financial Crimes. In Handbook of Research on Theory and Practice of Financial Crimes (pp. 506-524). IGI Global.