How companies benefit from ethical data use

We live in the age of data - a statement one often hears and one that is hard to ignore when looking at advancing digitalisation. It is often said that data is a treasure that companies should cherish and care for. Customers, on the other hand, "pay" with their data for access to certain content in the online sector.

This can be a win-win situation for both companies and customers. However, this brave new world is cracked when data protection scandals shake confidence in the protagonists. Many customers and voters are critical about what happens with their data. The success of companies and institutions therefore depends more and more on how sensitively they handle the data entrusted to them.

As a consequence, national, international and EU initiatives have begun to regulate data protection more closely and have also brought the issue of data ethics into the spotlight. The societal demand for ethical, social and sustainable handling of data will have a lasting impact on political and economic development in the coming decades.

Companies that are prepared to handle their customers' data appropriately and sensitively can profit immensely from this development. However, how is ethical data use defined? How does data ethics become part of a company's DNA? And how can data ethics sustainably advance the economic development of one's own company?

In our white paper "Data Ethics“ (PDF in English) we shed light on the current situation. We show where the challenges lie and how companies can benefit from an ethical approach to their customer data.