Integration and adoption of your digital platforms across the organisation as well as the adoption of a digital mindset is critical to success. Clear data governance, proper management of suppliers and partnerships as well as engendering a culture of digital curiosity and confidence will help you to deliver on your digital promise. Below we list some areas that you might need to consider.
Regulation
Data may be your organisation’s greatest asset, but it can quickly turn into your greatest liability. Regulators around the world are tightening their grip on the way data is collected, stored and used. Fall short, and you’ll face significant reputational and financial damage. Our digital business team can support you in meeting regulatory requirements whilst still extracting tangible value from your data assets.
Take care of your data
All companies collect, process and use huge masses of data. If personal data (eg IP addresses or location data) is collected, processed or used, data protection regulation must be complied with. For example, if personal data is transferred from an EU member state to a country outside of the EU, special data protection requirements have to be taken into account. Read more about the Top Ten Issues in Data.
Managing data and other digital rights
Organisations are seeing an increase in the exercise of data related and other digital rights. In particular, the volume of data subject access requests (DSARs) and the complexity of them is increasing exponentially. Not only are such requests more frequent but they tap into an increasingly diverse and extensive digital ecosystem. As a result, they can be difficult to manage without having set up a manageable and repeatable process and without access to appropriate technology to manage the search and review process. To respond to these challenges, our DSAR Toolkit enables us to customise how each DSAR is managed, reviewed and redacted and uses our eDiscovery technology to create a highly efficient review process.
IP rights
Your IP strategy will play a key part in the implementation of your digital business, whether you’re building in-house or collaborating with others. You might consider investing in a portfolio of registered IP rights (such as patents, designs and trademarks), or structure your internal data-related activities properly, to benefit from IP rights that protect structured datasets. You will also need to avoid conflict with third party IP rights. As you collaborate with others, it will be important to define carefully the use and management of new and existing IP. Our transactional IP practice can also help you generate value for your business by licensing your IP. Our intellectual property specialists can help you decide the best strategy for your business as well as assist with the ongoing management of your IP portfolio.
Tax structure implementation
Once the tax structure has been designed, taking into account the tax benefits available and managing any additional tax costs that may be due, it is important that actions are followed through to implement this structure such that the tax compliance obligations are appropriately addressed in each of the relevant jurisdictions. We can help you through this implementation phase, for example, by preparing legal agreements and other supporting documents as part of an overall ‘defence file’, and establishing relevant operational and governance frameworks. Find out more.
Attracting and incentivising talent
Once strategic plans have been made and moving onto implementation, key personnel have a central role in ensuring success. As well as taking steps to protect confidential information and practical measures to secure business critical information and plans, longer term incentive arrangements and having the right contractual protection (notice terms, garden leave provisions) play an important role in retaining the knowledge, expertise and experience within a business and reducing the risks that key talent will be lost or protecting the business if key staff decide to leave. Find out more about our wider employment and incentives team and the range of profit and bonus arrangements, as well as contractual protection which they can advise on.
Legal operations / data visualisation
Legal departments are often required to ‘do more for less’. Making teams and processes more efficient through the application of smart system design as well as process and workflow optimisation can have a huge impact on an organisation. The intelligent use of existing and new technologies, along with data structure and change management can bring this transformation work to life. Read more about our legal engineering business Simmons Wavelength.
Contract life cycle management
Contracts are critical for all organisations. They drive business, build relationships and manage risk. They are also a rich source of data and insight. Optimising how contracts are managed generates huge benefits that go well beyond ‘legal’. Better contract lifecycle management improves commercial and operational performance, as well as business insight and compliance. Find out more about Simmons Wavelength.
This document (and any information accessed through links in this document) is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Professional legal advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from any action as a result of the contents of this document.
Key contacts
If you have any questions, contact a member of the Implementing digital business team for assistance:
