May 25th, 2018; the date the GDPR goes into effect. There is certainly plenty of information on the internet about what the GDPR is and what it requires from businesses. However, the impact the GDPR will have on your daily life might not be as apparent. In a series of blogs, we discuss the impact the GDPR will have on you and the changes you will have to make to continue working effectively under the new regulation. This time, we discuss some important GDPR guidelines for the Chief Revenue Officer.

Strike a balance

As Chief Revenue Officer, you are likely used to performing a balancing act: balancing marketing versus sales or direct conversions versus long-term content strategies. The GDPR will bring an extra challenge: striking a balance between GDPR demands and financial results. As your Data Protection Officer is not concerned with the financial impacts of GDPR-guidelines, you might find yourself at odds with him or her at times. Working together with your DPO to comply with the GDPR while still being able to perform valuable analytics, is crucial.

Break down silos

An issue in companies that is growing in magnitude as the GDPR approaches, is the silos that might still be present in your company. As Chief Revenue Officer is it vital you break down silos in your company to allow marketing, sales and customer relations to work together towards a single goal. Open communication with the data protection officer and even the IT department is also growing in importance, as clarity on where data is processed for with purpose is vital for complying with the GDPR.

Continue to be data driven

The best Chief Revenue Officers are data-driven, and this will not change under the GDPR. Collecting omnichannel customer data and using it to proactively address customer issues, is still one of the most effective ways of ensuring more (and more predictable) revenue. While collecting customer data will be more difficult under the GDPR, doing it will be more important than ever to identify market opportunities.

For the data-driven revenue officer, the GDPR might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The GDPR will force many companies to adopt a more structured approach towards gathering and processing data. Companies will likely turn to data management platforms and the like to map and manage the data they collect. A smart CRO will be able to use this data management platform, along with other technologies, to collect and process a wide variety of data in a more comprehensive way. Work together with your data protection officer and higher management to ensure you can reap the benefits from any new technology that is being brought in. In other words…

Use the right tools for the job

The ideal data management tool does not only ensure GDPR-compliant processing, but also provides you with constant access to comprehensive, complete, quality data. Our Data Stream Manager has been developed not only with the GDPR in mind, but also with a dedication to ensuring quality data across the company. Whether you are interested in optimising conversion rates or analysing customer behaviour, the Data Stream Manager enables you to perform analytics on complete, integrated datasets. This way, we aim to help you improve your current revenue and discover valuable new business opportunities in a GDPR-compliant way.