K19 - Basic Areas of Law: OtherReturn

Data privacy is a current issue that must be addressed by all entities when handling personal data. Although the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been effective for more than two years, it still poses challenges to businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The aim of the paper was therefore to find out what SMEs in the Czech Republic in terms of their running consider and perceive as contemporary data privacy issues in marketing and why, because marketing is one of the areas that have been fundamentally affected by GDPR. The particular objective of this contribution was to introduce brief conclusions of the focus group with the managers of marketing activities, employees in charge of marketing issues and GDPR, or owners of SMEs. This focus group was the second in a row and its aiming corresponded to the declared goal of the paper. The chosen research method represents a necessary and important pre-research phase for the future planned qualitative and quantitative research. The main findings and conclusions showed that the issue of GDPR and the related necessity to ensure the protection of customers´ personal data is a topic that still actively employs business entities and presents persistent challenges for them.