How a privacy compliance operations organization achieved operational excellence (2024)

Published by Peter Nguyen on Jun 24, 2024 9:39:28 AM

Robust privacy compliance is a strategic asset for companies subject to stringent privacy laws and regulations. Recently, a leading social media and consumer electronics enterprise experienced significant enhancements in productivity and compliance efficiency, thanks to iTalent Digital's managed services. This article explains how strategic operational excellence set a new benchmark for the company’s privacy operations.

Privacy compliance challenges

The team's privacy compliance operations were mired in ‘high-touch’ sequential procedures that depended heavily on a chain of approvals across various upstream and downstream teams. This arrangement slowed down processes and heightened the risk of errors and delays.

Compounding the problem was a lack of visibility to pipeline requests, sizing, and prioritization that frequently led to a flood of urgent requests. The dynamic and unpredictable nature of the privacy business was another challenge that had the team reacting to developments rather than anticipating and proactively managing them.

This setup was far from ideal in an environment where global regulations and privacy policies are constantly evolving and demand quick adaptability and precise execution.

Reeling under these challenges, this multinational technology conglomerate reached out to iTalent Digital for transformative solutions that would alleviate the burden on their team while making it more efficient.

The goal was clear: streamline processes to enhance productivity and compliance without compromising the rigor required for privacy operations.

iTalent Digital’s solution: A tiered services model

To tackle this complex set of challenges, iTD introduced a strategic tiered services model carefully designed to optimize and simplify every layer of operations.

Compliance assurance and audit services

At the foundational level, iTD implemented rigorous compliance assurance and audit services. This involved the thorough auditing and verification of privacy assets and legal contracts to ensure strict adherence to privacy standards. By methodically reviewing documentation, our team bolstered the team’s compliance framework and created a robust foundation for all privacy-related activities.

Business analysis and operations

The next tier focused on enhancing operational efficiency through streamlined business operations. iTD’s approach included refining operational services, enhancing risk mapping, and improving issue management processes. By defining clear operating rhythms and establishing repeatable service models, we drove significant efficiencies across business operations. This involved automating processes where possible, simplifying complex workflows, and ensuring all business analyses were aligned with overarching privacy goals.

Project management

The third level involves project management, where the processes and operations of the whole privacy compliance organization are orchestrated and coordinated to achieve the desired goals. This entails a number of ongoing activities, including:

• Establishing an operational framework for the privacy shared services model where documentation of operating rhythms, intake processes, categorization, and prioritization occurs
• Defining a request intake triage process, where requests are categorized, prioritized, assigned, and scheduled
• Handling the processing, analysis, and support of requests including remediation reviews, process definition, and optimization (including automation).
• Conducting risk mapping and analysis to evaluate issues risk, safeguards, regulations, and industry standards
• Driving greater business intelligence via reporting and analytics to provide frequently updated, end- to-end metrics.

Impactful results

The operations transformation deployed by iTalent Digital yielded a striking 61% reduction in the case re-open rate, which plummeted from 7% to an impressive 2.7%. This metric alone speaks volumes about the enhanced reliability and accuracy of the privacy compliance processes that were implemented.

Simultaneously, we experienced exponential growth in productivity, having achieved an 80% improvement in the timeliness of completing product integration reviews. This meant that requests for new or altered product integrations were processed faster, escalating the pace at which the organization could respond to and implement changes.

These improvements collectively eliminated the backlog of outstanding requests, freed up substantial stakeholder capacity, and enabled the redirecting of focus towards strategic initiatives. As a result, teams were able to engage more deeply with strategy and innovation, rather than being enmeshed in operational tasks.

As the Lead Counsel from the Central Review team put it, "The team is excellent at handling a rapidly changing environment, new processes, changing systems, etc. I'm impressed with how quickly the team gets up to speed on new tasks and is able to execute such tasks with great efficiency. The team is also proactive about going above and beyond for projects to ensure that no corner is missed."

Seize the opportunity for operational excellence

At iTalent Digital, our commitment to operational excellence extends far beyond privacy compliance. We empower organizations across various sectors to redefine their processes and achieve remarkable efficiency. Whether you're tackling complex compliance issues, streamlining business operations, or enhancing project management, our expertise can guide you toward operational excellence.

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