The concept of digital trust is gaining traction as an essential ingredient for modern business success, even if some practitioners and organizations still struggle to pinpoint exactly what it is and what it looks like at high-performing organizations.
During a recent panel on digital trust imperatives at ISACA Conference North America: Digital Trust World, Rolf von Roessing, partner & CEO at Forfa Consulting and past ISACA board vice chair, offered a straightforward example of the differentiator that trust can become in the marketplace.
“If I buy something expensive and I have three or four options, why do I go to supplier B, and not A or C or D?,” von Roessing said. “Maybe the price is the same or even a little higher, but I’m willing to pay because I trust these guys. That is high performance that’s visible in the marketplace and also top line in the profit lines.”
Von Roessing participated on the panel in Boston, Massachusetts, with Pam Nigro, 2022-23 ISACA board chair, Jo Stewart-Rattray, past ISACA board director and ISACA Oceania ambassador, and Patricia Voight, a member of ISACA’s Digital Trust Advisory Council. The panel was moderated by Shannon Donahue, ISACA’s senior vice president of publishing.
While many people associate digital trust closely with cybersecurity, ISACA has emphasized that all areas of the enterprise have important parts to play in creating a trustworthy digital ecosystem. Stewart-Rattray said breaking down siloes is an important starting point.
“I think it has to be a whole of organization approach,” Stewart-Rattray said. “It’s not just about procurement or it’s not just about security – it’s a whole of business approach, and that’s what you see in high-performing enterprises is that understanding. It goes beyond cross-functional. You have to use that outside ecosystem that you’re a part of, so you have to look at vendors and how that relates as well.”
As if sustaining customer and stakeholder trust were not enough of a challenge in an era plagued by data breaches and cyberthreats, the continued evolution of artificial intelligence – including the increasingly popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT – is creating new risks and ethical dilemmas for organizations to navigate.
Stewart-Rattray said organizations she has been in contact with are largely in the early stages of determining how they can responsibly utilize these tools.
“There’s a modicum of panic, I have to say – ‘What (on earth) do we do with this and how do we ensure there is ethics involved and that there is not bias there?’” Stewart-Rattray said.
Added Voight: “Companies are taking these initial steps into using it and at the same time putting guardrails up. Almost every organization that I’ve talked to has put out their policies, practices and procedures around this to be able to take these baby steps into how they’re going to be using this versus letting it kind of run wild without the right oversight and governance controls in place.”
The panelists also discussed ISACA’s State of Digital Trust 2023 report, in which four out of five respondents say that organizations that can demonstrate their commitment to digital trust will be more successful, but only about half of respondents indicate they are confident in the digital trustworthiness of their organization.
Nigro said organizations should consider the top benefits they can achieve through digital trust, including increased profitability, and prioritize it accordingly. She challenged the audience in Boston to set in motion a sharpened focus on digital trust at their companies, saying “You have an opportunity to be a leader at your organization.”
“Bring a cross-functional team together and lead it,” Nigro said. “This is really an opportunity for us to step into that space and really elevate the conversation in our organizations.”
Editor’s note: See more digital trust resources from ISACA on our digital trust webpage and learn about upcoming ISACA Digital Trust World conferences, virtually and in Dublin, Ireland, here.
