Before talking about the depth of the disagreement between marketing and IT about the adoption of marketing techniques, let us pause for a moment to determine where we work. Yes, the gap in this disagreement in small and medium-sized companies is simple and can be easily bridged, while it goes deeper and larger in large companies. What is the reason? The reason is simple, but it may not be clear. When companies grow, they begin to take into account many things that SMEs do not pay attention to, such as what? Let’s summarize these matters as follows:
- Build or buy? When any technical solution is needed, there are usually three types of solutions:
- Building this technical solution from scratch inside the company’s walls: this type is mostly deducted by the cost and time required to develop and maintain this product throughout the operation period.
- Buying a license for this solution and operating it from within the data center of this company: This type of solution is more cost-effective and addresses the problem of privacy and cybersecurity.
- Buying a license (subscription) in a SaaS solution offered over the Internet (Cloud): This type is often the least expensive, but it collides with hosting data at the service provider, which is what privacy officials consider a breach of customer privacy protection systems, and cybersecurity experts see it as a contract for not controlling the considered standards. They have.
- Privacy : With the data revolution and SaaS services, many legislations have emerged to protect the privacy of consumers’ data and legalize it. It is important for workers in the fields of technology and marketing to know the most famous of these legislations currently in place around the world, such as:
- HIPAA or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, one of the oldest legislations since 1996, appeared as a codification of health file data for American citizens, and then its use spread in other technical industries that have nothing to do with health.
- The GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation, which is the European regulation for protecting consumers’ data in Europe and for the services operating there, has been the subject of a major conflict between lawmakers and American technology companies since 2018 until now and is considered one of the most stringent regulations and legislation in the matter of privacy.
- The CCPA or California Consumer Privacy Act, legislation similar to the GDPR, often targets large companies or those that generate more than $ 25 million annually.
- Cybersecurity : One of the most heated topics in recent years and the point of disagreement here is that when you use a service hosted by its provider, you cannot control the safety standards that are followed, in return the effort is focused on ensuring that this service provider applies standards that are consistent with the requirements of the companies that use the service, and here a lot appears. It is difficult to provide what meets all the standards of the entities using your service.
Now that we have pointed out the main disagreements, let’s get back to thinking about who cares about these matters? In small and medium companies, the easiest solution is always to use ready-made marketing techniques or SaaS because it is more material and faster in launching the product and providing the service and because privacy is not an important element for many of these companies, and the levels of security provided are more than sufficient, while in large companies stands privacy and security My stumbling block in the way of using these products because the standards of these companies are high and their interest in privacy and security is very high and governed by advanced controls. Is this an opinion or an information? Let’s look at the report blissfully, one of the most popular sources for companies’ accreditation of SaaS services for the year 2020:
This graph says that the larger the size of the company, the less its dependence on SaaS services, while the employees of small and medium companies use more numbers of these steps, and that is a great detail in the report. I recommend that you review and understand it completely .
Let’s end the conversation in this post with a question: Do I, as a specialist in marketing and its techniques, be an expert in privacy and cybersecurity? The answer is: You do not have to be an expert, but you must understand the outlines of these two points (privacy and information security) in order to be able to evaluate and choose the appropriate services for your business, for your clients, for the company’s regulations in which you work and for the legislation and regulations of the market in which your company operates.
