(US and Canada) Phil Miller, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Solidatus, speaks with Baz Khuti, President US Modak, about the evolution of data management, and the impact of privacy regulations on organizations.

Miller breaks down the journey of CDOs into four generations. The first generation of CDOs had to begin in unorganized environments trying to get organization and data protectors in place. The second generation tried to introduce standardization, having difficult conversations and starting to catalog important information. The third generation started to turn people-intensive processes into machine processes. 

The fourth or current CDO generation is about machine intelligence and implementing automation. They also enjoy the most stable environments.

Speaking on regulatory standards and the aspect of lineage, he says that the regulations may not be exactly the same but they are trying to be functionally equivalent. So, any organization that conforms to any of the regulations will likely be compliant with most of the others. Miller says that it would take some additional effort to find the differences in the regulations and address those as well.

He then says that it is safer to be compliant than to draw penalties. Today, some of the penalties can even threaten the existence of entire organizations and erode credibility. He further explains that as more and more consumers expect transparency, there will be less tolerance for failure.

Miller asserts that privacy is actually an opportunity. If organizations can demonstrate and be transparent in implementing privacy, it could earn customers’ trust in the organization.

Concluding, he says that organizations and data leaders will have to generate loyalty by catering to customer expectations such as digital services, transparency, trust, and quick service.