If you have kept up with data privacy and compliance issues in the last few years, you will have noticed how quickly things change. First, the regulations change. Then, the consumers become aware. Then, the businesses that do not respect privacy begin to face serious legal and reputational challenges. This is the environment where a company like Syrenis thrives.
Syrenis is a technology company from the United Kingdom whose entire existence is dedicated to enabling organizations to manage consent and handle data in a way that is responsible and legal, especially concerning the GDPR. What makes Syrenis different from the other compliance software companies is how their strategic initiatives are built on the depth of their thinking. These are not ethereal and vague mission statements that are in the boardroom and never come out. These are working and real statements that dictate how the company approaches building products, expanding their team, and establishing partnerships, as well as how they add value to their clients.
I intend to show you the value and purpose of Syrenis Strategic Initiatives and how they could influence other companies and compliance practitioners. Regardless of whether you are a Syrenis customer, potential partner, or a practitioner in the compliance technology field, I hope this will provide you some value.
What is Syrenis?
It can be useful to have some context about Syrenis before we jump into the specifics of the strategy. Syrenis is a producer of consent and preference management solutions. Their main product, Cassie, is a consent management solution that enables businesses to collect, save, and utilize client consent, and do so while remaining compliant with all data protection laws.
Syrenis was created with a mission to solve the modern business dilemma of how to manage customer data in a way that is both helpful and legal. Though this may appear to be a simple concept, the reality is that this is an extremely convoluted problem. The rules of law and regulations govern every country, and the landscape of technology and consumer preferences is in a constant state of flux.
It is this point of view that I think is the most impressive. Syrenis set their focus on consent and preference management and allowed themselves to work within that. This choice supports their claim of focus and is a point of consideration in the strategic thinking of their leadership.
Explaining Syrenis’s Strategic Initiatives
What are strategic initiatives, and how do they apply to Syrenis? Strategic initiatives are defined as intentional activities used to fulfill long-term goals. Unlike standard projects, strategic initiatives represent the intentional application and allocation of resources, such as time, finances, human resources, and energy, for meaningful business progress.
For Syrenis, strategic initiatives represent a combination of themes for the following: advancing their knowledge of data privacy and compliance, elaborating their technology platform, growing into wider markets, developing valuable strategic relationships, and establishing their place as experts in the consent management sector.
The most fascinating aspect of Syrenis’s strategy is their perception of compliance. They do not see compliance as a problem, as most businesses do when faced with the GDPR and its contemporaneous regulations. Instead, they have developed a unique business strategy built on the premise that regulatory compliance can be a competitive business advantage. This approach is visible in every aspect of their operations, including product design, customer success, and their marketing.
Syrenis Data Protection and GDPR Compliance Framework
Data protection is the core focus of Syrenis. This is not merely a framework for their products; it is one of the foundations of Syrenis’ strategy. Considerable investments have been made by the company to ensure their Cassie platform is not only built to deal with the current requirements of the legislation but is sufficiently flexible to cope with the changing landscape of the legislation. And believe me, they change. GDPR has only been a reality since 2018, and we can already see a great number of operation-related judgments, guidelines and new legislation in other areas that businesses should be looking into.
A significant part of the Syrenis compliance strategy has been developing their capacity to manage consent at large scale. A significant number of companies struggle with the concept of consent management, as they manage to obtain consent in differing myriad places, store it in fragmented systems and then have no real way to honor it in the event a customer changes their mind or when the customer exercises their rights. Syrenis has built their entire system to address this problem, and their strategy focuses on making the entire process that much easier, faster and more dependable for the larger enterprise customers.
Their method to GDPR Compliance displays their philosophical stance of ‘Privacy, by Design’. Here, anticipatory privacy protections in process and systems, are preferred to privacy protections being retrofitted after the event. They definitely have the right of way in regard to data governance. Many of their competitors do not integrate this into their governance and use it as a marketing tool instead, and it is pleasing to see a company actually providing the service and not just talking about it.
Strategically, their governance provides them a self safe competitive advantage amongst competitors who have not spent as much to this compliance. Potential customers comparing consent management platforms, have a hard time ignoring the level of depth presented by Syrenis.
Syrenis Technology and Digital Innovation Plans
Technology is the supporting pillar of Syrenis’ growing vision. Just like their growing number of competitors in the modern software services, Syrenis cannot afford to remain stagnant. The growing demand and complexity of the consent management governance environment in terms of emerging channels and devices, new data and newer regulations, is putting a lot of pressure to adapt services and platforms to integrate these new requirements.
Syrenis has exhibited clear innovation for permissions management in automation. Manual management of permissions across thousands of touchpoints is labor-intensive and inefficient. Intelligent systems are needed to manage the labor while providing compliance teams the needed visibility and control. Syrenis solutions are headed in this direction by providing features that automate permissions collection, preemptively highlight compliance concerns, and deliver real-time reports to decision-makers regarding the company’s current permissions posture.
Syrenis has also identified the growing interest in integrating AI and machine learning into permissions management. In practice, this could mean analyzing permissions data and identifying customer drop-off, or using machine learning to model the impact of preference changes on marketing outcome. Again, Syrenis has incorporated this into their solutions by strategically investing on the continuum from compliance with their solutions, realizing the potential of AI and machine learning.
I value their earnest approach to solving customer pain points over integrating solutions for the sake of the solution. I have witnessed so many companies integrate AI features because they make for an impressive press release, yet these features are so disconnected from the needs of customers and users. I find Syrenis to be more grounded to their customer needs.
Syrenis Market Expansion and Partnership Goals
Syrenis’s Marketplace Expansion strategies emphasize their purpose and how they aim to achieve their goals. Syrenis understands that not all markets are created equal. The company has strategically selected to prioritize specific sectors and has opted not to approach other markets and sell to companies across all sectors/silos. These strategic sectors are: financial services, healthcare, retail, and media. These sectors possess sensitive customer data and therefore face peculiar challenges with data consent management.
Syrenis’s Partnership Strategy also focuses on building and extending their networks. Syrenis has developed partnerships with a variety of businesses and consultancies. Syrenis has developed an ecosystem approach, and it has been eye catching and beneficial to many partners. During compliance challenges, it becomes difficult to locate a “one-stop shop” vendor, and the most successful vendors in this space are typically the most complementary.
Syrenis has embraced a specialization approach. In this approach they aim to dominate a few select market segments rather than aim for a breadth of coverage, which is also beneficial and has led to partnerships. Syrenis Strategic Initiatives has a unique and dominant specialization in consent management, and that expertise is clearly seen in the quality of their product.
I consider this a good business move. The demand for specialized compliance technology is increasing. The firms with this real domain knowledge will be much more successful than those oferecendo consent within a smattering of features.
Why Syrenis Strategic Initiatives are Important to Your Organization
Now let us consider the implications of this for you, the business leader, compliance officer or marketer, in your attempt to understand and deal with the data privacy issues.
There is one very clear reason. If you are a Syrenis customer or are thinking about becoming one, then knowing Syrenis’ strategic direction will help you make more informed decisions about how best to employ their software and what your expectations of them will be as a continuous strategic partner. If their strategy better addresses your compliance needs, they will be a much more valuable vendor than one who is simply selling you a product.
There is a second reason, and it is not as clear-cut or as obvious as the first. Syrenis’ strategic moves will help many organizations understand internally how they need to be thinking about data privacy. Companies can no longer view the management of consent as a liability. The organizations that do this will gain a competitive advantage in the market.
The method Syrenis uses is worth studying for compliance teams as it incorporates clear governance frameworks with flexible, scalable technology. Compliance is generally dealt with reactively. A shift happens, and companies are forced to shift, while Syrenis takes an incredibly different approach. It is strategic and deals with the situation before it happens.
Lessons Organizations Can Learn from Syrenis Strategy
The thing that strikes me as the most important thing an organization can learn from the strategic initiatives of Syrenis, is the value that can be provided by building a culture around a thing that is objectively important.
Data privacy exists beyond a legal framework. It is a relationship of trust. It is a trust relationship. When Syrenis’s addresses consent management, they address how entities fulfill their promises to the trust of their clients. This is a fundamentally human, long lasting, important perspective of a successful organization.
Practically speaking, there are quite a few takeaways. First, focus is essential. Syrenis Strategic Initiatives succeeded, in large part, because they were not willing to be a standard company. They identified a crucial issue, and they dedicated to providing a solution to this issue that no one else would provide. Second, one cannot have a “privacy-first” strategic initiative if there does not exist a privacy-first design and functionality in the product. Third, there is greater value in a long-term partnership than in a short-term win. Does their best work when helping the companies that they have built a long-term relationship with, and thus have gained a deep understanding of their individual challenges.
These are great lessons that extend beyond the world of consent management. Regardless of industry or scale, these lessons are the foundations of any substantial strategic initiative.
Conclusion
Syrenis’s strategic initiatives are a fascinating case of a company that actually implements a post-profit concept that integrates goals of purpose beyond a profit. With a focus on the center of the strategy of partnerships, privacy of data, and compliance and innovation, they have created a slice of the market that no one else has created, and that is significantly important for addressing the issues of the companies of today.
If you are a company that is serious about data privacy, Syrenis Strategic Initiatives is more than a software company. They provide the lens of a framework for a company to structure the compliance of a company. Getting data governance wrong can result in millions of dollars in fines and loss of reputation for years. Having Syrenis as a partner is a smart decision.
The message here is for companies to value data privacy and partner with companies who value it as well. Syrenis is a company that understands the value of data privacy. They are a company to watch.
FAQs
Q1: What is Syrenis’s main offering?
Syrenis has a primary offering in consent and preference management, with their primary product, Cassie, allowing organizations to align with the data privacy rights of individuals and manage customer consent.
Q2: What does Syrenis value?
Syrenis values partnerships, and will continue to grow their customer base through their value of data privacy, innovative technologies, and thought leadership in the compliance space.
Q3: How does Syrenis assist in alignment to GDPR?
Syrenis aids in alignment to GDPR by providing a framework for organizations to manage customer consent in a transparent way across various customer touchpoints in a compliant manner.
Q4: What industries does Syrenis primarily operate in?
Syrenis primarily operates in the financial services, healthcare, retail, media, and customer services industries as these industries have complex consent management issues that require innovative, scalable solutions.
Q5: Why choose Syrenis over other compliance tools?
Syrenis utilizes a consent management framework and privacy-focused tool development and a business-focused approach to make compliance work in their clients’ favor over other compliance tools.
Q6: Is Syrenis suitable for small businesses?
Although Syrenis’s solutions address the needs of large enterprises with multifaceted consent management issues, at a basic level of their business model, the tenets of consent transparency, data governance, and the privacy by design approach are applicable to, and would benefit, organizations of any size.
