The practical application and implementation of the new legislation on the protection of personal data is not an easy job. But once the organization's has its IT and governance in place, there are many benefits for both the business and marketers. First, customer data will be central in every organization. GDPR imposes stricter requirements on the administration, processing and storage of personal data. For this, all data flows and activities within an organisation will be mapped. A marketer does not need to file a formal question at the IT-department anymore, since the data will always be available.
Second, customer data will be more accessible and the information is more reliable. The data quality will increase significantly, because of better insight into the location of the data. Take the 'right to be forgotten'; an organization has to know the location of all data about a specific customer in order to remove it permanently. Only erase data from a repository for marketing purposes and not from the one with financial data, is obviously not enough. Because getting good quality data is no longer the biggest challenge for a marketer, he can use (self-service - easy to use) analytics to learn more about customer behavior and tailor his marketing actions better.
And thirdly, with the new legislation the data will be brought together and consolidated, so that both marketers and other business users can perform analyses and thus make better decisions and add value to the organization. This allows marketers to take the next step toward more accurate and complete customer information and enables the marketer to have a better targeted and relevant conversation, with the kind permission of the customer.
Want to learn more about the implications of the GDPR, join us at the SAS Forum on June 12th!