The Hindu Business Line : `Disconnect between business, IT leaders'

Business executives focus hard on revenue and the bottom line and increasingly devote resources to corporate governance and security matters. Yet, almost one in every three of the more than 1,700 senior-level corporate and technology leader respondents in a new international survey do not trust their companies' own ability to handle private or sensitive information, and that same number are either unsure or do not believe that most of their business partners consider them to be trusted enterprises.

The survey, part of a broad research project called the Unisys Trusted Enterprise Index, was conducted on behalf of Unisys by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy organisation. It is based on a sampling frame of 30,000 business and IT leaders comprising CIOs, CEOs, boards, security and privacy expert in the US and UK.

"It concerns me to see the overall lack of preparedness among business leaders to monitor and protect the trust their companies have with customers, vendors and even employees, especially given how devastating a breach of trust is to a company's reputation and bottom line," said Mr Mike Gibbons, Vice-President and General Manager, Enterprise Security, Unisys.

"Of equal concern is the disconnect between business and IT executives over how to build a trusted organisation," Mr Gibbons said.

The disconnect between the business and IT leaders was distinct with IT leaders stressing on protecting privacy and IT security, while business leaders focused on more financial-oriented measures such as risk management and good corporate governance.

IT leaders believe that positive media coverage, IP protection and responsible marketing practices build trust much more than do business leaders and they felt that inadequate intellectual property protection, weak privacy and undependable IT erodes trust.

The study found that among all industries, retail banking is the most trusted in both the US and UK. However, the views of the US business leaders and their UK counterparts differed on trusted industries. Healthcare was the most trusted among industries in the US , while it was the least trusted in the UK. Similarly, the Government is highly trusted in the UK and one of the least trusted sectors in the US.

Despite an increased sensitivity to corporate ethics and compliance among corporations today, customer satisfaction, leadership, prudent fiscal management, and customer respect are ranked much higher by business leaders surveyed as the most influential builders and stewards of trust. Factors including market capitalisation, market share and others rank much lower, the study said.

Unethical business practices, customer dissatisfaction, lack of respect for employees and customers and poor leadership are the top five factors that erode trust within an organisation.

"Trust is an intangible asset that is often overlooked until it's too late," said Mr Larry Ponemon, Chairman and founder of Ponemon Institute.

More Stories on : Corporate Governance | Privacy | Management

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Megasoft bags Bangla deal

VSNL to trim subsidiaries

Toshiba targets 15 pc of market pie in notebooks

Airvoice Info to launch mobile ad tool

Recruit.net in India

CYS Multimedia to open more training centres

Satyam to expand biz intelligence practice

LSI Logic buys Metta Tech

Kenexa buys UK co

`Disconnect between business, IT leaders'

Newgen signs up with Sinosoft

Pramati Tech to host Java meet

BSNL to appoint associates for direct marketing

TRAI may get powers to enforce quality of service

Subex chief on TM Forum board

Cisco CEO coming here next month