Business in an era of digital trust
Businesses have significantly accelerated their pace of digital transformation. In Bangladesh, many companies have already embarked on their digital journey. Their adoption of modern infrastructure such as cloud-based infrastructure has increased manifold, particularly in this last one year after the outbreak of the pandemic.
Many companies have also started adopting cloud-based enterprise systems. Some of these organisations are upgrading their existing enterprise systems to cloud-based versions; some have opted for cloud-based enterprise systems in their initial adoption; some have begun adopting specialised packaged solutions, e.g., to automate the activities of their sales personnel.
With these organisations becoming more digital, their surrounding ecosystem is transforming as well. Companies around the world have started conducting business more digitally than earlier with their suppliers, customers and employees. However, while this transformation to the digital mode is encouraging, it also increases security-related risks. Worldwide, incidents of cyberattacks have increased significantly during the last one year.
Keeping this in mind, businesses in Bangladesh need to rethink their strategies for doing business.
The journey towards digitalisation is not only imperative but also irreversible. Companies will eventually fall by the wayside if they lag behind or fail to digitalise themselves.
And there is no doubt that the digitalised way of doing business improves efficiency, fosters innovation and brings additional transparency in the system. Along the way, stakeholders' trust in the digital ecosystem also grows. This is known as digital trust.
However, weaknesses in technology- enabled systems, processes and infrastructure make companies vulnerable to the risk of erosion of digital trust. Cyber adversaries regularly exploit vulnerabilities to compromise associated systems, processes and infrastructure.
They steal sensitive data to harm companies' systems. They also attempt to commit crimes, e.g., extort money, after holding critical systems hostage remotely.
Quite often, such adversaries operate from outside the geographic boundaries of their target countries.
In such cases, bringing them under the ambit of a country's law enforcement framework is very difficult, if not impossible. Therefore, it is essential for business organisations in Bangladesh to take effective proactive measures to address this risk.
PwC conducted its Global Digital Trust Insights 2021 survey to understand the thoughts of business leaders around the world on this issue. Around 3,249 business and technology executives responded and shared their views about what is changing in cyber security and what is coming next.
Among their responses, two themes emerged very clearly. First, cyber security is no longer a reactive activity. It is now a part of more thoughtful exercises such as strategy and planning for a business. It is also more forward-thinking with a focus on preventing and pre-empting cyberattacks before their onset.
Secondly, cyber security is no longer only focused on technology. Today cyber security experts work closely with business leaders to understand their priorities and the risks they face, and to help their business teams strengthen their resilience to potential threats.
These two sets of activities are making the cyber world a more level playing field than earlier – for adversaries as well protectors.
Companies in Bangladesh have also begun realising the need for this shift in their thinking. Cyberattacks on infrastructure and assets in the country are not new. In fact, some nationally and internationally discussed cyber heists date back five years.
To counter such threats, business organisations in Bangladesh have shown a keen interest in developing their awareness and knowledge of cyber security and have been working on assessing the risk of cyberattacks on their organisations over the last couple of years. IT executives have become more conscious than earlier of cyber risks faced in undertaking new IT initiatives.
This collective awareness will be helpful in mitigating significant cyber risks in coming days. Many organisations in Bangladesh have also carved out a specified role for a CISO, full time or part time.
Banks and financial institutions have been the first to create this role.
However, digital trust is not just about cyber security. Building digital trust requires foresight about the direction in which a business should move over the coming years. And while digitalisation is inevitable, it is also important to have a clear vision of the path the journey should take and its ultimate destination.
PwC's Global Digital Insights 2021 survey clearly indicates that most of the companies surveyed have accelerated their digitalisation projects in pursuit of business growth. It also shows a rise in the number of full-time remote workers in their organisations.
Under the circumstances, it is clear that there is a need for businesses to put in place location-independent technology infrastructure, so that their employees do not have to visit offices or workplaces to perform their work. And, while the outbreak of the pandemic has led to these changes, this work mode is likely to continue even after Covid-19 is controlled and the economy springs back to its normal trajectory.
In this scenario, what is evident is that such changes require a cyber security leader to play multiple leadership roles, such as that in business transformation, in customer experience delivery and in employee experience delivery.
In addition, this leader needs to be an authority on management of risks in an enterprise, a protector of enterprise-related data and a value creator who expertly leverages data.
Companies in Bangladesh are on their accelerated journey of digitalisation and business transformation. Therefore, cyber security leaders must upskill themselves with these capabilities to make themselves relevant for the future, and more importantly, to keep their organisations resilient.
It is evident that upskilling is an essential component in business leaders' strategy formulation in Bangladesh. However, upskilling should not be limited to desk job employees or factory workers. It needs to be implemented across organisations, including in the topmost positions.
CXOs are also required to upgrade their digital acumen through this upskilling process and develop their understanding of how digital trust can be built and sustained in their companies. Very importantly, employees engaged in different functions need to develop their awareness of and expertise in practising a secure way of conducting business to protect digital trust in their organisations. Technology leaders in the CXO community should also upskill themselves to prepare themselves for their evolving roles in their businesses.
Many leading organisations have already begun thinking seriously about building digital trust in their businesses, and some have started working on achieving this goal. However, what is important is that in view of the promising national economic growth scenario envisaged in coming years, all businesses should expediously embark on building and enhancing digital trust in their organisations.
The writer is a partner with PwC. The views expressed here are personal.
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