Digital trust begins with compliance

Adam Markowitz at Drata argues that a strong, resilient digital trust ecosystem is paramount for organisations of all sizes

 

Now more than ever, digital trust is top of mind for cloud-based companies—it plays an important role in mission-critical business objectives, ranging from customer satisfaction and retention to overall financial success.

 

The World Economic Forum defines digital trust as the “expectation that digital technologies and services – and the organisations providing them – will protect all stakeholders’ interests and uphold societal expectations and values.” A study carried out by McKinsey found that “organisations that are best positioned to build digital trust are also more likely than others to see annual growth rates of at least 10 per cent on their top and bottom lines.”

 

In an era of digital transformation, many organisations are adopting and integrating a wide range of new technologies to improve their operations and market adoption. At the same time, the rapid pace of innovation can introduce new and unknown risks – particularly those that impact cyber-security.

 

Failure to implement the right policies and processes to address those risks has the potential to erode or even completely destroy the trust built between an organisation, its customers and stakeholders. That trust is a rare commodity that is hard to earn but extremely easy to lose. 

 

Creating a strong, resilient digital trust ecosystem is paramount for organisations of all sizes, and one of the main avenues that pave the way for digital trust is compliance. 

 

Compliance as a conduit for digital trust

Many organisations currently embrace a reactive approach to compliance, built on a foundation of manual processes. But this approach severely limits their potential.

 

Manual compliance efforts are time-consuming, leaving organisations feeling burdened by the work required in order to pass an audit or receive a certification. Moreover, this reactive approach creates blind spots and provides validation only at specific points in time; hindering scalability, adaptability, and by extension, trust.

 

Instead, organisations need to embrace automation to streamline the journey while better navigating the complex regulatory environment. 

 

There are a few ways in which compliance automation can help organisations establish digital trust. For example, using automation to continuously monitor security and privacy controls, technology stacks, and policies provides organisations with real-time updates and alerts about changes that might affect their compliance status.

 

In addition, eliminating the manual spreadsheets and screenshots for evidence collection ensures all necessary documentation is readily available and easily verifiable can help prospects (and auditors) quickly identify compliance status.

 

Proactive alerts about personnel onboarding or offboarding, endpoints, and security training also helps enforce the continuous maintenance of security procedures.

 

Without the ability to demonstrate continuous compliance, organisations are likely to stumble at the hurdles of increasingly challenging regulatory environments. By automating an organisation’s compliance operating procedures, teams can embrace digital innovation in a way that helps them to build trust with their key stakeholders.

 

And it is more practical to ensure transparency and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to maintaining compliance over time, not just at the time of an audit. Continuous compliance provides concrete proof security and privacy practices are being effectively implemented and monitored to the highest standards.

 

Even more, organisations can transform compliance programs into a scalable strategy with complete visibility into their security posture while freeing up valuable time and resources to focus on growth initiatives. 

 

By prioritising continuous compliance, organisations can fast-track the path to earning digital trust and maintaining a resilient digital infrastructure, instilling confidence in customers and partners alike. 

 

---

 

Adam Markowitz is CEO and Co-Founder at Drata

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com