by Xavier Verhaeghe
This is probably the coolest time in the history of IT. The sheer number of exciting projects which transform companies or complete industries is astonishing. And many of those transformations are enabled by new innovative uses and capabilities of information technology.
The Digital revolution is hitting all functions in organisations, how customers interact with their service providers, how they interact with their products, how suppliers optimise the collaboration across the supply chain, how the Internet of Things is changing many aspects and making them real-time, how human capital professionals drive value, how marketing is being done, how R&D is being accelerated, and so many more examples. This connected world has also enabled a big move in IT agility and delivery with the Cloud model putting pressure on the old architectures, processes and procedures that were for a long time the cornerstone of IT.
One of the key success factors is trust
There are some consequences of all these evolutions. First there is an exponential amount of data generated, captured and analysed. This data mass is ideally turned into value and is hopefully being used by the right person at the right time for the right reasons. Secondly we see an exponential growth of the diversity of access to information. This is not only anymore a one-point access, but a wide variety of entry points to the data via different devices, channels, interfaces and many more. And this by humans or by machines. If the purpose of this all is to provide a drastically improved customer experience in a much more efficient way, then it is clear that one of the key success factors of the whole journey is trust. A customer will use the service or benefit from the improved experience if – and only if – he or she trusts that the data will be treated in the most secure and privacy respecting way. The amount of data and the multiplication of ways of access are however increasing dramatically the associated risks involved. Risks include fraud, sabotage or just violating privacy expectations. And organisations of all kinds have the possibilities to consider the risks, make the right assessments and implement the right Security tools and measures to establish and maintain that trust.
EU Data Protection Reform
So the just agreed EU Data Protection Reform is not something that comes out of the blue. This is a reflection of what those citizens, users and customers have as a minimum expectation when they are offered those greatly enhanced Digital Experiences. Oracle has invested since its inception, more than anyone else in the IT industry, in Security across all layers of the IT Stack, both on premise as in Oracle Public Cloud – from data-masking and redaction, transparent data encryption, privileged user management, flexible access and authorisation, embedding Encryption capabilities in Silicon and many more. When you deploy the right components out of our Security Suite, you’ll have gone already a long way in both addressing the needs of the EU Data Protection Reform and the needs of your customers searching for this best customer experience.
The author, Xavier Verhaeghe, is VP Technology Solutions Oracle EMEA.
