In the face of data privacy compliance, do you take the easy route and do the bare minimum, or do you innovate? New research from The Conference Board Marketing and Communications Center has found that while 58 percent of the US marketing, tech, and compliance executives we surveyed agreed that regulatory compliance offers an opportunity for innovation, most haven’t yet taken the next step to actually turning customer privacy concerns into a competitive advantage. 

Authored by Senior Fellow Susan Getgood, "Innovate or Hunker Down: What Executives Think about Data Privacy, Security, and Regulation" is the first release of the newly titled What's Ahead: Marketing and Communications series. The piece is available for download free.

In a Nutshell

• The Conference Board Marketing and Communications Center surveyed 54 executives at member companies in the US with responsibility for marketing, technology, and compliance about their attitudes toward privacy, data security/integrity, and regulation in order to gauge the degree to which personal attitude may inform professional opinion and action.
• Organizations value data privacy and security, in no small part because consumers increasingly value them.
• Compliance is part of company marketing messaging; however, few companies are deploying innovation around regulatory needs as a competitive advantage.
• Attitudes shared in this survey offer evidence that corporate responses may shift to place higher value on innovation, but the driving force will most likely be consumer expectations, rather than a proactive response in anticipation of consumer demands.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts.