Business News

Fri Jun 12

Privacy expert: Businesses must rethink management of customer information post COVID

Written by Tess Sanders Lazarus

With many businesses slowly returning to normal post lock down, workplaces are expected to look very different in terms of how they function and operate. Alex Teregonis believes one of the biggest changes will involve staffing and he is predicting that this is going to cause big issues for the management of confidential customer information.

Teregonis is the founder and CEO of Bag-N-Shred, one of Australia’s leading document disposal services.

“I think we are going to see many businesses implementing highly flexible working arrangements with staff to maintain social distancing. Effectively businesses will be trying to minimise the need for all staff to be in at work at the same time,” Teregonis said.

“This will involve changing up times when staff come into the office. We’re going to see staff working shift work, working from home and working at the office, increased job sharing and an increased spread of responsibilities and duties,” Teregonis said.

“This is a lot to manage. As you can imagine, with flexibility brings the requirement for big changes to systems, processes and procedures to ensure critical activities are still undertaken when and as needed. Other issues include building and office access and entry permissions.

“Unfortunately this is when you see vital things slip, like building security, access management, compliance around office protocols such as clear desk policies, storage of materials and ultimately the security of confidential customer or patient information.”

According to Teregonis, the post lockdown environment is going to cause many issues for the management of confidential information.

“Businesses have a lot to deal with at the moment,” Teregonis said.

“Rightly so, a key focus is protecting the safety and wellbeing of their staff. This is going to involve significant coordination and stress for a lot of business owners and managers. We are in difficult times.

“My concern is that while many businesses will be focused on social distancing and hygiene, other issues such as the proper management of customer information may suffer.”

Teregonis has outlined some key areas of risk for businesses:

Customer or patient information being left on desks or in areas that can be seen or accessed by others
Materials not being properly stored away – particularly when working from home
Lack of proper monitoring of the handling of sensitive information
Materials being taken home by workers and left unattended, or lost in transit

“There are some simple things that businesses can do to minimise risk. The most obvious is to implement a plan, protocols and compliance for the management of materials during this period of flexibility,” Teregonis said.

“Put in place simple measures to ensure the easy, safe and reliable destruction of confidential materials.

“Bag-N-Shred works with many businesses, child care centres, aged care facilities, accountants, lawyers, schools and medical outlets to provide bags for the disposal of materials. Documents are simply placed into easy-seal bags and dropped into an Australia Post outlet and delivered to the destruction centre. Customers can track the bag and get notification when it is destroyed.

“Simple things like this can save a business from imploding from a breach.

“Under the Privacy Act, business owners are responsible for protecting their customers’ personal information from theft, misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. If you no longer need your customers’ personal information, you must destroy or de-identify it.

“My advice to all businesses returning staff to work is - make sure you focus on confidential customer information. This is one of the biggest risks to business in the new area of flexibility.”

Bag-N-Shred is Australia’s leading document disposal business, servicing businesses large and small all over the country. Bag-N-Shred is an easy and affordable way to securely destroy documents. Their shredding bags are extra strong and durable and can hold up to 5kg of paper-based documents - this is equivalent to two reams (approximately 1,000 sheets) of A4 paper. Simply sign up and they’ll send you a Bag-N-Shred bag for $19.90. It's that easy! Drop the filled and sealed bag at any Australia Post Office, and it will go to Bag-N-Shred’s secure facility for safe and confidential destruction and then recycled into new paper products.

www.bag-n-shred.com.au

Thu Jun 11

5 tips to learn growth marketing quicker than the competition

Written by News Company

Are you looking for a career in growth marketing but don’t know how to set apart from the millions of other growth marketers? Don’t worry, we got your back!

Even though more and more people discover growth marketing as the next step in their career, it’s not too late to join the emerging field. After all, it’s still developing rapidly and constantly changing – meaning new needs and challenges arise constantly creating plenty of opportunities for newcomers to shine.

However, it’s important to have a plan in place on how to stick out of the crowd and be among the best in growth marketing. With more people pursuing careers in growth marketing, this is getting harder every day – but not a mission impossible!

Here are 5 tips on how to future-proof your growth marketing career that sets you apart from your fellow growth marketers.

Study new skills

That’s the classic way of learning. There are plenty of online training courses in growth marketing but also options like growth marketing bootcamps (e.g. General Assembly) that will build your skills.

You will want to build your growth marketing skills in a so-called T-shaped form, meaning that you know a little about all relevant marketing topics and a lot in a few (i.e. you’re a specialist in only a handful of areas).

Pursue a side project

One of the best ways to learn growth marketing is by starting a side project. This can either be your own side-project or you offer others to help them in your free time.

Ideally, you’ll find projects where you can learn a lot from the people who run the projects, for instance experienced growth marketers themselves. While you can’t expect to earn much money with this, the learnings, experiences and relationships you build on the way are invaluable.

Add experts to your network

Set yourself up for success by building relationships with experienced growth marketing experts. You can learn a lot from observing and communicating with others or asking for their advice on your challenges.

A great place for building your professional network this is LinkedIn. You’ll find plenty of growth marketers on there that you can reach out and connect with. It’s also a great platform to learn because many people share their knowledge and experiences freely.

Build up your own audience by posting about growth marketing topics or documenting your journey to become a growth marketer. You’ll attract like minded people and opportunities will come your way.

Get a coach or mentor

Why would you try to go all the way to the top by yourself? It’s much harder, you’ll make plenty of unnecessary mistakes and most of all it will take you much longer to try to get a good growth marketer by yourself.

Instead, get help from experienced growth marketers who can coach or mentor you on how to achieve your goals. They’ve usually paid with sweat and tears for their own experiences and are happy to share them with you to elevate your game. Platforms like GrowthMentor are an ideal and inexpensive place to get help from experts quickly.

Start a growth marketing role

The last (and most logical) step to learning growth marketing is to find a position within growth marketing. Of course, you’re going to build your skills much faster if you spend most of your time doing growth.

This means you should try to earn your bucks with a growth marketing job as soon as possible. If you’re already a more experienced growth marketer you should look for roles in growth marketing that go beyond your current capabilities. This will incentivise you to learn new skills and work on your T-shaped skill set.

In conclusion, boosting your growth marketing career and becoming one of the top growth marketers is surely not easy but definitely not impossible. Follow one (or all) of the above tips and get ahead of the curve and learn growth marketing quicker than anyone else.