Harrahs Casino is the Worlds biggest provider of casino brands and entertainment, and occupies about four million square feet of land that houses forty thousand hotel rooms, and has about a hundred thousand employees. Harrahs Entertainment came up with data warehousing which would successfully support a shift to CRM-oriented strategies for corporate purposes (Norman Torn, B 2003, p. 28). The Harrahs Data Analysis, in 1997, came up with a loyalty program which was used in initiating all the data gathered from all the selling points. In 1998, they began mining and doing an analysis of the data they had accumulated. The result was that any Harrahs customer spent about 36 percent of gaming dollars with the company, and 26 percent of the customers produced about 82 percent of revenue. According to the statistics, the best of their customers were basically high rolling, but were just the middle aged people, the retired teachers, bankers and even nurses and doctors who gave much income. This has thus created the question of using customer private data, and to what extend should this data be used.
Ethical Use of Customer Data for Business Purposes
Securing any data belonging to a customer is something very vital and which requires an examining vendor, and safeguarding from both external and internal threats. In order to understand why this is very vital, the average cost charged in any data breach is around 202 US Dollars for every record of the customer, should the data breach have come from a hacker, inadequacy of the systems, or inappropriate use by a company. Because of that, there are limits at which the customers private data can be used. This means that the company should use the data if only it has the necessary mechanisms of ensuring that there is no custodial loss of the customers data. If the loss occurs, it will definitely incur a liability on the company (Talluri, 2005, p. 38). A company is therefore in the need to ensure it has a safe security policy which meets the requirement of the data security. That being the case, it should be necessary to note that the data does not give the public the main details of the customer.
The implication here is that, in the event there is not a single legitimate business idea or reason for using the data, it is hence required that the company discards the data. Otherwise, should there be any data loss the company will have to be liable. Because of that, there are limits and boundaries at which a customers data can be used for business purposes. For instance, if that data has to be used, it is required that the actual information is never used, but just featured only. Although a number of companies make the customers sign for legal provisions that the company can use the information provided, the law still gives provisions that there should be no data exposure to the public pertaining any companys employee or customer.
Due to these factors, it has been quite challenging for any given organization to maintain a proper balance, and be able to offer security over the data in its hands. Therefore, it would be necessary to come up with the major ethical consequences which may arise from this use of private data (Norman Torn, 2003, p. 47). Because of that, there are a number of items which managers and implementers of technology can put into consideration whenever using any given data belonging to the customer or employee. The company should develop systems whereby the permitted users of the information have access to some given levels of information which may not compromise the security of the customers private information. Also, it should be necessary that the end-users of the information define the ethical standards that must exist when using the data for the purposes of the business.
All companies should also be dictated to define the boundaries with which they will integrate with public or customers data, and where the integration will occur in order to avoid conflicts in interests. Also, it is also necessary that companies do not in any way use real or live customer data when doing their testing purposes. This can be done through sampling whereby only a portion of one customers data is used, then another portion from another customer, and so on. This ensures that the data obtained is reflective of the management, but on the contrary not depicting any exact data of one customer, client, or employee. Also, the data which is locked in the systems should never be accessible to anyone in the organization. This will ensure that there is enough security for the customers data (Talluri, 2005, p. 44).
There have also been some emerging regulations that a company is required to define to what extent, and how, and who will be doing data mining. This can be done by putting necessary restrictions in the efforts of mining and giving necessary set of information. There should also be a built notification system which would always monitor any illegal data being mined for inappropriate usage (Norman Torn, 2003, p. 50). The customers should also be allowed to block any kind of integration of their own private information, but this will be dependent of the customers information and availability in the web. It should therefore be remembered that all the efforts being put in place are still in accordance with the governmental laws. That is to say, nothing is so sacred to the government because, if the government wants to access some information about a given individual, they will have to get it. But with the company use, the company should be given limits through which these customers data should never be used for the benefits of the company. The use of individuals information will kill the customer-company relationship, and therefore making customers withdraw from the company.
Therefore, it should be appropriate that, if any customer data is to be used by any given company, then it is necessary that the data is used in such a way that it does not expose any details of a given customer. This can be done by not using exact figures, but by just given random approximations which cannot expose the whole of the data. Also, it should be necessary to have all the right measures in place in ensuring that the information about the customers and clients is never compromised at all (Norman Torn, 2003, p. 73). Today, technology is one of the powerful tools for enabling manufacturers to be able to collect a broader spectrum of the data they have acquired so that they can be able to design better decisions and come up with marketing decisions. These will all be based on the requirements, tastes and preferences of the customers. Therefore, it will be necessary for us to note that it is important that the company will use the data to improve customer-company relationships, and be able to provide the best services to the customer. That being the case, it is necessary that the way the data is used does not compromise or expose the security of the customers information (Talluri, 2005, p. 53). This is the reason why Cherokee has been integrating its marketing and Revenue Management so that the Customer Relationship Management and Revenue Management systems are antagonistic to each other. Marketing will be used to send automated phone calls, and e-mails to the targeted customers (George, 2003, p. 68).
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