Digital transformation has a profound impact on every aspect of a business. The result is an increasingly complex digital environment. Fundamental changes to the way corporations stay secure are essential.
Whether by government mandate or competitive pressure, digital transformation has become the strategic catchcry of Australian government agencies and businesses. Two-thirds of business leaders believe their companies must speed digitisation to stay competitive, according to Gartner.
Led by promises of heightened productivity and better process efficiency, organisations are revisiting every part of their operations to see where digital systems and processes – combining on-premises and cloud systems, mobile customer interaction and autonomous Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices – can be applied.
Yet for all the enthusiasm, growing compliance obligations, customer expectations and competitive pressures mean every digital transformation must be implemented with a careful eye on data security. Privacy legislation already obligates companies to protect customers’ personally identifiable information (PII), but this obligation will reach the next level in 2018 as the European Union’s general data protection regulation (GDPR) – which takes effect in May – and Australia’s Notifiable Data Breach(NDB) scheme, which kicks off in February, thrust companies with poor security into the limelight.
A recent Forbes Insights survey found that digital transformation has driven 69 percent of senior executives to rethink their cybersecurity strategy. By 2020, Gartner has predicted, 60 percent of digital businesses will suffer major service failuresbecause they haven’t managed their risk correctly. Yet in a recent global study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, just 44 percent of respondents said their board members participate in the formulation of their overall security strategy – suggesting a gap between companies’ understanding of the need for transformation and the changing impact on security.
Here are five articles that explore why security is critical during a digital transformation – and how companies can go about implementing it:
- A New, Agile Approach to Security: Cyberesiliency (Wired). Outlines the challenges that transformation has created in terms of security and business exposure.
- Cloud migrations motivate boards on security more than compliance or fear of attack (CSO). Examines the high level of security breaches around the world, and discusses the need for company boards to pay greater attention to security as digital transformation is under way.
- Take the Leap Ahead (Dell Technologies). Research into the implications of digital disruption offers insights about the state of digital transformation. Interactive survey allows you to benchmark your company’s progress against that of more than 4000 business leaders in 16 countries.
- Digital Has Changed the Security Landscape (Gartner). Article highlights the security risks of more flexible, agile digital businesses and provides an entry point to Gartner’s many thoughtpieces on security and transformation.
- Digital Transformation and the Importance of Security (Huffington Post). Interviews with several executives about the way they approached digital transformation and data security, in the context of tight compliance requirements.
