Wellness Industry: 10 Ways Data Privacy Can Increase Your Competitive Edge

How to Utilize Consumer Data Privacy as a Competitive Advantage

Growing nearly twice as fast as the global economy, the wellness market has quickly become a $4.2 trillion industry. There are many factors that have contributed to the wellness industry’s growth. As a generation addicted to our smartphones, consumers crave instant access to information. Whether it’s counting steps, managing sleep, calming stress, monitoring heart rate, or tracking cycles, mobile apps are now a critical component of our daily wellness routine.

Furthermore, the wellness industry is experiencing a significant increase in wearable devices equipped with network capable technology. These devices can range from simple step and heartbeat counters to advanced appliances that can monitor patients with serious health conditions.Many organizations are starting to offer business-sponsored wellness plans as part of their employee benefits. Corporations are utilizing popular wellness technology and devices such as FitBits or Garmin. In fact, Gartner estimates that as many as 90% of corporate health programs will utilize a wellness device by 2021.

While these popular wellness technology and devices may offer several benefits, many pieces of wellness technology are synced to a cloud application to aid in the retrieval of user information from multiple devices. If not implemented correctly wellness devices can pose a threat to the organization’s security, especially if they are synced to the same network or cloud used to store business data.