When organizations are facing big challenges—including external-facing adversity like data breaches or cyberattacks—that can often be when it feels most difficult to advance digital trust.
But it’s also a major opportunity, said ISACA Board Director Rob Clyde.
“When things go wrong, that’s an opportunity to show our true character and culture,” Clyde said. He added, “Clear and crisp communications with customers will help build trust.”
Ninety-eight percent say digital trust is important to organizations, and 82 percent say digital trust will be even more important five years from now, according to ISACA’s 2022 State of Digital Trust survey report. During their session last week at RSA Conference 2023 in San Francisco, “The Digital Trust Gap: How Cyber Pros Break Silos to Advance Digital Trust,” ISACA Board Chair Pam Nigro and Clyde highlighted these and other key findings from the survey report, as well as previewed ISACA’s Digital Trust Ecosystem Framework and discussed ways that teams can break down silos to work together to advance digital trust.
Nigro and Clyde walked through the ways that digital trust is a game-changer, not only bringing cybersecurity, but also other disciplines such as privacy and governance to the forefront of strategic initiatives and business operations.
In today’s digital landscape, misuse of customer data, cyberthreats and artificial intelligence make trust a challenge for enterprises, but Nigro and Clyde stressed the need for strong digital trust to be successful in building relationships with customers. According to the State of Digital Trust 2022 survey report, 66 percent of respondents say high levels of digital trust leads to positive reputation, and 58 percent say it leads to fewer privacy breaches. While the benefits of digital trust are clear to many, Nigro and Clyde stressed it doesn’t mean that it is easy for organizations to build it and reap its advantages.
“This is a journey,” Nigro emphasized. “This is not going to be a light switch effect, where you click and have digital trust.”
As an example, she touched on the importance for organizations to examine how well their own products work as part of building trust with their customers, noting, “You can’t be trustworthy if your product isn’t easy or fun to use. Go and use your own product. Ask how it aligns with what you believe your problems are.” She added that when she did this in her own organization, “We had an ‘aha’ moment, realizing there really are things we can do better.”
When delving into how cross-functional teams can do the necessary work to build digital trust within their enterprise, Clyde stressed that these opportunities to collaborate across functions can serve as a valuable chance for professionals to build their own leadership skills. “You should look for vacuums in your organization and fill them—instead of saying, ‘I wish someone would do that,’ say, ‘I can do that.’”
Clyde and Nigro also offered a sneak peek of ISACA’s State of Digital Trust 2023 report, which will be released on 9 May, sharing the top five obstacles to attaining high levels of digital trust. They also provided an overview of an early version of ISACA’s Digital Trust Ecosystem Framework and resources, noting that these will also link to other commonly used standards.
The two ISACA leaders ultimately stressed that digital trust results from intentional planning and concerted efforts from cross-functional teams.
“Take inventory of your skills and create a plan so you can start to engage your organization and build digital trust,” recommended Nigro.
For more resources around digital trust, visit www.isaca.org/digital-trust.