Imagine that your house is a mess. What to do? You hire a cleaning service, and soon you wonder how you lived without them. They do amazing work, and you love the way they do things automatically without you having to tell them. In short, they are perfect. Except for one little problem… when they’re done, they leave your front door wide open on the way out.
Is this how your business partners protect your data security? From vendors you work with to the tools you use, your business is only as strong as the weakest link. As an individual, protecting your data security might start and stop with changing up your password. As a business, you’ve got a lot more to consider. How can you protect your data, your customers’ data, and your reputation?
Hint: It starts with asking questions! Our recent webinar with cybersecurity leaders from Sogolytics and the Ministry of Finance Qatar focused eight risk areas to address when considering partnering with a new vendor.
Protect your business from cybersecurity risks
with tips from our on-demand webinar!
Why you should protect your data
For every business, data is used to fuel growth, but collecting data also comes with a responsibility to protect it. The quality of that protection may be more important than you think for the business’s continued growth. A recent McKinsey report shared how 85% of consumers say that knowing a company’s data privacy policies is important before deciding to purchase with the company.
As businesses move from their own on-premises hosting to support from cloud-based providers, they gain convenience, but they give up some control. If a business’s reputation is dependent on its data security practices and its data security is dependent on external partners, it’s critical to ensure those partners are deserving of this trust and responsibility.
While it may seem scary to put your reputation in the hands of strangers, new partnerships and technology solutions can go a long way toward strengthening your business. Instead of simply hoping for the best, take a critical approach to each new vendor relationship by asking the right questions to help you mitigate risk.
Key cybersecurity risk areas to address
While there are a wide range of questions that you need to ask in evaluating a new partnership or tool, tackling these eight critical risk areas can have a huge impact on the success or failure of the venture — and perhaps even your business.
- Access to your data
- SaaS application security
- Infrastructure security
- Physical security
- Identity theft protections
- Availability and disaster recovery plans
- Security assurance and regulatory compliance
- Security incident and breach management protocols
Prioritize security at every stage
Customers are becoming more intentional with the data they share in this digital age, and expectations are increasing. If you’re not confident in how your partners (and your own organization!) are handling data, you’ve got to start there.
If you’ve got your bases covered, how are you marketing data security as a differentiator? The better your security, the better your customer experience and loyalty — and vice versa!
All of the people and technology that help you drive your business require a careful review, but data security is especially critical when data itself is core to the wrok you do. Conducting research, focusing on customer experience, or studying employee experience? Make sure your experience management provider is using top-rated security protocols—and can prove it!
Ready to deepen your understanding and strengthen your business’s data security? Check out our on-demand data security webinar!
Want to learn more? Connect with us today; we’ll gladly share how we can help! Want more resources? We invite you to explore other sessions on our SogoX series!
