When you’re planning your next business expansion, you’ll be planning on the basis of how many new customers you manage to onboard and establish new relationships with. This big-picture thinking is needed from a manager, but it shouldn’t be explored at the expense of the finer details: like compliance, privacy, data breaches and cybersecurity. This article is therefore all about the small things you will need to get spot-on in order to scale up your business responsibly, keeping your data secure and as difficult as possible to breach.
Know the Regulations
When we’re talking compliance, we’re talking regulations. There are many dozens of different regulations that can apply to your business – and they’re all concerned with how you use, trade, sell, protect and secure your customers’ data. If that data is breached in any way – stolen by bad actors – you will find your company under a huge amount of scrutiny in the media and from regulatory bodies.
Recall, too, that the EU’s GDPR ruling, helping establish Europe’s data protection laws, will apply to your business if it operates online in those countries. Be careful not to fall foul of their strict fines by getting to know these regulations.
KYC Regulations
One of the most important parts of the data journey that you go on with your customers is at the onboarding stage. It’s here that you get to know you customer (KYC) – learning who they are, what their credit history is like, and other important details to help them secure their accounts with. This is also the stage of your relationship that is most heavily policed and regulated – and, as such, one to read into. Ge to know KYC compliance obligations under the law in order to ensure that your company is always acting lawfully.
Dogged Cybersecurity
The world of cybersecurity has often been cited as the biggest-growing industry in the modern era. Data breaches can be so damaging to companies that their shares fall dramatically, taking years to climb back to their original position. Worse than that, of course, is the dent you’ll place in customer trust: many people will simply leave your platform for a competitor that’s got a better track record regarding security. With the risks so high, these can be no excuse not to protect against data breaches with expensive, highly-trained cybersecurity specialists. It’s a new obligation in the digital age.
Educate Your Customers
There is, of course, an element of responsibility that lies with your customers themselves – especially if they’re careless with passwords and the security of their own data. As such, the other prong of your attack against data breaches is to educate your customers as much as possible about sound and secure internet interactions, and when and where they should give out personal data. Put your marketing team on a mission to educate your customers – something they’ll respect and learn from for their future interactions online.
These tips are fundamental in securing against data breaches – a modern requirement for all companies that hold consumer data.
