Mention online privacy and most people will think about their personal data. Ask CEOs and business owners about on-line privacy and they will start mentioning anti-virus software.
Nobody talks about private proxy and anonymity. Because most business owners do not relate anonymity and private proxy to online safety. Generally, they think about malware and viruses.
In recent years, not viruses but data breaches have been more harmful to on-line businesses. The harm incurred by on-line data breaches and privacy issues brought even bankruptcy to some of these companies.
Some departments within your business are more vital then others. Therefore you should protect them better. For example, in the aftermath of the financial crisis the British Government forced banks to ring-fence their speculative activities from their retail operations in order to protect its citizens. In the same way you have to ring-fence and keep anonymous some business departments in order to protect your profits and your company.
The most important departments to protect are marketing, finance and production (operations and R&D).
MARKETING – WHY USE PRIVATE PROXY ON IT, ISN’T IT USELESS?
Why should a business ring-fence marketing and keeping it anonymous? The marketing department is the most exposed one. Through this department you create awareness for your product and business. It should be as transparent as possible. There is a counter-intuitive approach to anonymity.
Seth Godin said that in order to attract attention and awareness, your business needs to be a ‘purple cow’ on a field full of brown cows. Indeed, your marketing campaign needs to be as different as possible in order to distinguish your business from your competitors.
While your marketing campaign needs full exposure, your marketing back-office and marketing operations need full anonymity. Seth Godin is right, you need to be a purple cow.
When a new marketing campaign or technique is adopted by the many, its performance vanishes. To remain a purple cow, you need to bury your marketing in anonymity.
By using private proxies, you make it almost impossible for your competitors to find about your next big hit. They will not manage to do any data breach on your website or servers. Private proxies and vpn will hide the location of your ‘purple cow factory’.
FINANCE – WHERE PROFITS DISAPPEAR
Making public your business servers location is like having a bank in a wild west town without sheriff. It will attract the wrong type of traffic. Sooner or later your company will experience some sort of attack. Usually, the intent of this attack will be steal your financial data.
Two business data breaches in recent years led to the bankruptcy of one company and the fall into oblivion of the other.
In February 2014, Mt Gox, a Bitcoin exchange, suspended its operations and filed for bankruptcy. It happened after a data breach in their system allowed for the transfer of Bitcoin from their wallet.
In July 2015, Ashley Madison, a dating website, was hacked and most of its users personal and financial information was leaked on-line. While the dating website did not incurred any direct financial loses. The drop in activity lead to steep loses. And the financial information of its users could easily turn into a cash source for hackers.
In both examples, their business suffered because their servers and financial data was easily identified and located.
In your marketing department you need anonymity to protect your idea pipeline. While in finance you need anonymity to protect what marketing brought in so far.
PRODUCTON (OPERATIONS AND R&D)
Your business might not be a manufacturing company, but even for an eCommerce company, production, can be identified with operations. It has the same purpose. A repetitive task with inputs and outputs. Thus generating a production flow.
Like Amazon, many businesses consider their operations a trade secret. If the operational department is a trade secret and is the main cash engine for your business, why not protect it?
The business history records abound with examples of industrial espionage and intellectual theft. For an on-line business, there are great threats coming form many directions.
The 2010 CyberSitter scandal and accusation of Chinese government of intellectual theft and inclusion of some of their software into the Green Dam program demonstrated that operational espionage and hacking is coming form foreign governments as well.
The SONY Pictures hack, after the release of ‘The Interview’, demonstrated that many foreign governments are involved in different sorts of hacking and monitoring of Western companies.
You and your business premises are safe and protected by authorities. But your online business does not have any sort of protection over the Internet. Operational and R&D secrecy and anonymity are the only way you can keep and develop your business strategic advantage.
TO SUM UP – FOR THE YEARS TO COME…
As mentioned in a this post, the only way to stay safe online is through business anonymity.
There are certain departments within your business that need to stay anonymous in order for your business to be safe. Private proxy implementation can bring the level of anonymity required for your company to stay safe.
Your marketing pipeline, financial resources or operational structures can attract attacks with the intent of data breach for financial or political gain.
Your marketing efforts and results can dissipate if your marketing back-office is exposed. Your financial department, if exposed, can threaten the survival of your business. While the breach of operational departments can dissipate the strategic advantage your business is enjoying at the moment.
Anonymity brings and keeps business advantages within your company.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.