When an increasing proportion of our daily lives is stored, managed and serviced online, it's inevitable that so many of us are affected by the massive data breaches seen in recent years. For consumers, this means significant invasions of privacy, for corporations it means angry customers, reputational damage and devastating financial penalties.
The importance of addressing these issues was highlighted recently when Microsoft announced its intentions to apply the upcoming CCPA data privacy regulations not only to its customers in California, but also to those it serves across the entire United States.
Why does Microsoft take data privacy so seriously?
The answer is simple: Business Differentiation.
Observing the fallout from data privacy scandals that have hit other mega enterprises, for example, the Cambridge Analytica fiasco involving Facebook, Microsoft has correctly tracked a trend that's been in the making for the past five years, if not more.
Of course, invasions of privacy as complex as the Facebook incident weren't necessarily required to kick-start this trend.
From major attacks, such as those against Home Depot in 2014 that resulted in $25 million fines, to the Marriot Hotels breach in 2018 resulting in penalties of $123 million, the size and frequency of these incidents shows no sign of decreasing. As a result, it's not surprising that customer data breaches have become a worryingly common phenomenon.
What is surprising, though, is that data privacy, as pointed out in a Forrester report, was predicted and recommended to be a business differentiator almost five years ago. Since then, organizations are gradually shifting their attention to this crucial strategy – and so should you.
Taking a Leaf out of Microsoft's Book
Noting the increasingly frequent number of data breaches in recent years, visionary and highly watched companies like Microsoft was one of the first, along with Apple, that put data security at the top of its agenda.
By leading the way in prioritizing this aspect of their customers' experience and embracing data privacy regulations, these tech giants seek to guarantee their position as an organization that their customers can trust and are aligned with their concerns – more so than their competitors.
Indeed, when a recent Pew report highlights that 79% of Americans are somewhat to very concerned about how companies are using the data collected about them, it's clear that Microsoft's strategy is correct.
That said, compliance needn't be a headache
Already supporting the privacy strategy of leading contact centers, Compliance Center is NICE's answer to manage all your IT compliance activities in one place and in an automated way to help ensure that the data your organization collects is safe and abides by specific data privacy standards.
Leveraging analytics and automation to assure consent is appropriately gathered, PII is protected and data access requests are satisfied without adding overheads, the solution empowers IT, agents and compliance officers with mission-critical mechanisms.
To learn more about how Compliance Center can help make trust and privacy your organization's key business differentiator feel free to schedule a demo to see this end-to-end recording compliance solution in action.
