We’ve all heard the mantra of ‘people, people, people’. In other words, business success is dependent on fostering quality relationships with people. No matter if it’s customers, internal employees or third-party suppliers, good relationships are a prerequisite for ‘doing business’. When it comes to relationships, ‘trust’ has the power to strengthen or weaken any relationship.

“Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices. But if it’s absent, everybody notices.” – Warren Buffet

In 2019, Australian companies are expected to spend $17bn promoting and developing their brands. This includes positioning themselves as trustworthy. But what many company leaders today fail to account for is how their practices, in particular relating to the governance of data, can also influence people’s willingness to trust company brands.

Today, companies are operating in a more transparent and open context. Transparency of operating practices is an expectation reinforced by legislation such as the Australian Privacy Act and the Australian Government’s Notifiable Data Breach Scheme. The implication is that trust is something that is increasingly earned through evidence of good practice rather than the say-so of a company’s own advertising.

The point is that companies must earn trust by actually doing the right thing. That may sound simple, but when it comes to examining data governance practices, our experience is that many companies lose sight of the basics!

The good news is that a modest investment in developing your company’s data governance capabilities can be the difference between being a brand that is trusted and one that people avoid.

Read in our case study how an independent assessment firm found that Human Sparks’ data governance services improved its Client’s Supplier Trust Score by 58%.