Almost half of consumers in Asia Pacific or roughly 42% have stopped doing business with a company whose digital security is deemed not trust-worthy, according to the latest survey released by DigiCert.
In the newly published 2022 State of Digital Trust Survey, results also show that 88% of customers in the region would consider switching if companies do not manage digital trust, with 57% saying switching would be likely.
On the opposite end, nearly all (99%) enterprises believe it is possible that their customers would switch to a competitor if they lost trust in the enterprise’s digital security.
“Digital trust isn't just a buzzword. It provides the freedom to fully participate in the digital world,” said Jason Sabin, CTO at DigiCert. “It has become crucial to maintaining customer loyalty and the loss of it has a direct impact to the brand. If customers lose confidence in the digital trust competency of a vendor, they’ll eventually leave.”
Dallas-based Eleven Research administered the survey to 400 global IT, Information Security and DevOps senior and C-level managers, of which 100 were within APAC, from enterprises with 1,000 or more employees. Four-hundred consumers were also surveyed. Responses were global.
Digital trust enables organisations and individuals to participate in the connected world with the confidence that their digital footprint is secure.
Amid the backdrop of an expanding attack surface, companies require digital trust for a variety of use cases, including connected device and user identity and access, data integrity, software security, email protection, and web and digital content integrity.
Companies that are strategically investing in digital trust are positioning themselves now as stewards of a secure, connected world. In APAC, the main reason is the expanding threat surface, with 91% of consumers being concerned about cyber threats, more than anywhere else in the world.
“Asia Pacific has suffered several cyber-attacks this year, like the recent Optus hack in Australia, or the Shangri-La data breach in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. With many industry reports showing a considerable increase of ransomware and phishing incidents in the region, enterprises are realising that being the next target is not a matter of if but when. It is against this backdrop that digital trust is a crucial security consideration for both companies and their consumers,” said Ray Garnie, vice president of APAC at DigiCert.
APAC puts a lot of value on digital trust
Asia Pacific rates digital trust as extremely important, more than any other region, except North America.
APAC and North America are most optimistic about how their customers’ trust has changed over time. 71% of APAC companies say their customers’ trust is significantly higher today. 82% of APAC companies are confident in the digital trust practices of their business partners. This is driven by only 25% of APAC organisations having experienced digital trust incidences.
Meanwhile, for a region with stringent privacy laws, EMEA consumers are surprisingly relaxed about digital trust and have the lowest level of concern for cyber threats. However, EMEA shows strong interest at the enterprise level. Latin America-based enterprises lag behind the other regions in viewing digital trust as extremely important.
Enterprises valuing digital trust perform better
The survey included a series of questions to determine how well (or poorly) each respondent was doing across a wide range of digital trust metrics.
After the scores were totalled, the respondents were split into three groups: leaders, laggards and those in the middle. The leaders and laggards were then compared to examine the differences and explore what the leaders were doing better.
Within the APAC region, the leaders report doing twice as well as laggards with eCommerce website performance and availability, and 1.6 times as likely to say they’re doing well at preventing phishing or other email-based attacks. The leaders range from 10% better to 200% better in every metric. Overall, the leaders’ approach to digital trust is more strategic. For example:
- The top tier is more likely to believe a loss of customer trust will lead to a loss of that customer. They are also more likely to believe that digital trust affects their brand, sales and margin. In addition, they are almost twice as likely to say they would switch business partners if they lost trust.
- The top tier is further along in their digital trust journey and will complete that journey much earlier than the bottom tier.
- The top tier takes cyber threats much more seriously. They are as much as twice as likely to be concerned about cyber threats.
