ANZ organisations must prioritise digital trust

Only 29% of organisations in Australia and New Zealand are planning to increase their IT budgets in the next year to achieve digital trust, according to research from IT governance association ISACA.

A global survey conducted by the organisation also found that despite 99% of respondents in the two markets acknowledging that digital trust is important, only 13% have a dedicated digital trust role.

Respondents believe that a lack of training (52%) and leadership buy-in (52%) threatens to jeopardise the value that digital trust can deliver to an organisation.

Meanwhile, only 22% of ANZ respondents are measuring digital trust among consumers. Among those that do, the most common methods are customer satisfaction surveys (48%), tracking issues related to customer service (43%) and managing customer retention (35%).

Yet ISACA’s research suggests that 79% of organisations in ANZ believe digital trust is important to digital transformation. Other expected benefits include reputation improvement (74%), fewer cybersecurity incidents (64%) and privacy breaches (63%), and stronger customer loyalty (59%).

But even with these stated benefits, only 18% of ANZ respondents say their board of directors has made digital trust a priority.

ISACA Oceania Ambassador Jo Stewart-Rattray said digital trust should be an absolute priority for organisations moving forward considering the threat of independent assessments on a company’s digital trust practices.

“Consumers and stakeholders are increasingly vetting the organisations they partner with based on a company’s ability to protect their data,” she said. “ISACA’s survey indicates 66% of ANZ respondents believe that it is important for organisations to be independently graded on digital trust practices, with the results available publicly.”

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