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Why data security is modern marketing

Dubai - The cloud is focusing attention on data security.

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Data security is seen as a drag: It's complicated, it stifles a marketer's creativity and it's IT's baby anyway. Sound familiar? The truth is that data security drives every aspect of the technology revolution that is transforming marketing. Marketers need to not just take responsibility, but take control.
The idea that data security is boring vanishes once we understand that it's essential to brand value.
The average cost of a data breach is over $3.8 million, with damaged reputation, lost customers and customer acquisition big contributors to the bill. The introduction of GDPR ups the stakes, with a potential euro 20 million fine.
Your data security is intimately linked to your brand value. Any breach and the months spent in building your reputation are gone, forever. Yes, it's a drag, yes, it seems to stifle creativity, but no, it's not IT's problem, it's marketers problem too, and their suppliers. Time to take responsibility and time to take control.
And before we even get to breach, data security encompasses data quality, and bad data will stifle a marketer's creativity far more than any data protection regulation. One more reason to say that data security isn't just IT's concern; it's marketing's.
The cloud - hero or villain?
The cloud is focusing attention on data security. Mission-critical applications, such as CRM and data analytics are streaming out of in-house datacentres. Oracle predicts that by 2025 80 per cent of these applications will be cloud-based - yet 91 per cent of businesses have security concerns about the shift. The fear seems to be that the cloud is inevitable, but so too is increased risk.
The two outcomes are clearly incompatible - so is the cloud hero or villain? Neither, because cloud technology is like any tool, the way you use it is what matters.
Cloud can make marketing more efficient and allow for more creativity. But ultimately, any cloud solution relies on the quality, understanding and engagement that its users have with the data that underpins it. And that data should be secure and used according to legislation and what is ethical. So make no mistake, marketing must take control, because data security is modern marketing.
Dana Murugan is senior marketing director for Eastern Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Oracle. Views expressed are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.

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