By RV Raghu
In a 2009 Hollywood flick called The Surrogates everyone has a body double that goes out into the real world and does all things humans do while the real humans are happily ensconced at home controlling their surrogates , living a life of comfort and seclusion. In such a life, many aspects that define what it means to be human may possibly be redefined and reimagined, including trust. In our own lives, we are still grounded in the physical aspect of our existence, though many aspects from real-life are being transposed to the virtual world– a key aspect being trust.
All enterprises today are gung-ho about going digital and leveraging the digital world for everything they do. As they undergo this transformation, enterprises and CXOs would do well to note the criticality of trust in today’s online landscape. So much of what we do happens online, whether it is a customer paying for and receiving a service through a website, a student attending an online class, a patient being seen by a doctor virtually, an employee submitting their timecards to their employer through an online portal, or someone sharing their opinion—and potentially some personal details—through a social media platform. To continuing engaging in different ways online like this, those individuals making these transactions or participating in these activities need to trust that their information will remain confidential and secure, and that their actions will have the outcomes they intend—whether it’s receiving their ordered product or service correctly and on time, being able to access important medical information when they need it, or ensuring their employer knows they have been working and thus can get paid promptly. If this doesn’t happen for these stakeholders, this can not only be inconvenient, but potentially even cause them harm, and understandably can cause those people to lose faith and trust in the organizations they are transacting with. When organizations lose this trust, they then lose business, credibility and reputation, which can have devastating impacts.
Digital trust can make or break an organization. With increased data breaches, errors, ransomware and hacks, digital trust can be the difference between retaining positive reputations and customer loyalty after a major incident or suffering serious, time-consuming, and expensive losses. According to ISACA’s State of Digital Trust 2023 report, 76 percent of respondents indicated digital trust was important to digital transformation, and also reported worrisome gaps in several strategic areas including leadership support and staff skills/training. Interestingly, 81 percent of respondents agreed that demonstrating a commitment to digital trust would ultimately make organizations more successful.
A good first step would of course be to define what digital trust means. ISACA’s definition has been my go-to definition for a while now. ISACA defines digital trust as the confidence in the integrity of the relationships, interactions and transactions among providers and consumers within an associated digital ecosystem. This includes the ability of people, organizations, processes, information, and technology to create and maintain a trustworthy digital world.’
Defining digital trust goes a long way in ensuring that all stakeholders are on the same page when it comes to digital trust. Only 32% of respondents from Asia in ISACA’s State of Digital Trust survey showed familiarity with digital trust, a figure that jumped to 55% when they were made aware of the above definition of digital trust. Having a common understanding goes a long way in ensuring that roles and responsibilities can be appropriately allocated, helping overcome lack of leadership buy-in (42 percent) and lack of alignment of digital trust and enterprise goals (42 percent), which were indicated as some of the key barriers to attaining high levels of digital trust in ISACA’s State of Digital Trust survey 2023.
This common understanding can also help foster a holistic approach, help reduce obstacles and reap benefits. On the foundation of a common understanding, enterprises can try to unify efforts across the silos of security, risk, data integrity, privacy, governance, quality, and assurance, which are among the key components of digital trust. This can have a real impact on the experiences stakeholders end up having with the enterprise’s products or services and be a great starting point on the journey to build and sustain digital trust.
(The author is RV Raghu, ISACA Ambassador & director Versatilist Consulting India Pvt. Ltd., and the views expressed in this article are his own)
