An issue that many times gets overlooked when choosing an ERP solution for companies is privacy.  Whether you are in a small company, large company, private, or public you can be sure that the company has confidential information that could cause more than a few headaches if it were not secure. 

An issue that many times gets overlooked when choosing an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution for companies is privacy.  Whether you are in a small company, large company, private, or public you can be sure that the company has confidential information that could cause more than a few headaches if it were not secure. 

In today’s business, however, taking measures to secure private information is not just a good thing to do, it is required by law.  The issue is not sensitive company trade secrets that are vital to an organization’s competitive advantage.  Companies, including their overseas divisions, are mandated by government regulations to protect personal information from getting into the wrong hands.  In most western countries as well, a personal data security directive has been established to provide a foundation for protecting private personal information.  The same regulations are being enforced across the globe in Canada, Australia, and the other major commerce countries worldwide.

Privacy issues are also regulating sectors such as the credit card industry.  Visa and Mastercard have established a joint standard that is being adopted by the other major credit card companies worldwide in response to the rampant fraudulent credit card purchases across the globe.  

Enterprise systems and ERP software vendors are taking the privacy issue seriously and incorporating security measures in their systems to ensure secure data warehousing.  SAP, the leader in the ERP software space is incorporation double digit point checks and security measures to keep employee names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, and with regard to healthcare ERP systems, patient medical history records safe and secure.  Incorporating the security aspect in a large enterprise software initial design becomes paramount as HR and accounting and the entire organization is bridged together with the ERP system enabling multiple points of access to confidential data.

A breach in privacy for a company exposes a company to substantial penalties both from a cost perspective and even incarceration.  The Federal Trade Commission can and has imposed fines to companies for hundreds of millions of dollars for failure to implement required security measures when handling client information.

ERP vendors and software developers have to go through great pains to ensure data privacy during implementation.  To support an application implementation, backup, development , and training a site many manage as many as a dozen clones each with the same information from the original database to test and get up and running.  Data masking is another process used to mask private information so that it will be safe for testing and the implementation process.  Masking confidential information is currently the most effective way to protect information during an implementation and testing of a new application.

Depending on your organization, privacy data could be your biggest concern when sourcing the right ERP software for you company.  Getting more information on best practices in this space will be invaluable for mitigating your risk exposure and maximizing the return on your system investment.

Written by :

rich