OneTrust, the market-leading provider of trust intelligence, today announced the findings of its first trust intelligence report, “The State of Trust: OneTrust’s Benchmark Survey on Leadership Perspectives.” The report, the broadest and most extensive global poll of its kind, offers a multifaceted look into organisational trust programme attitudes and acceptance. OneTrust surveys over 2500 top business leaders across the US and EMEA and discovers significant agreement on the strategic benefit of trust as well as common difficulties that organisations are attempting to overcome when they develop trust programmes and processes. Furthermore, the majority of organisations regard trust as mission-critical and want to build specific trust programmes.
- Leaders value trust: 91% of respondents believe organisational trust is important to them, and 70% say trust is a critical business aim for their organisation.
- The consequences of trust are well understood: 69% of respondents believe trust is a crucial enabler of growth and innovation, and 90% have a budget for specific trust-building projects.
- However, there are certain issues to address: 77% of respondents think it is difficult to convince their board to agree with them on the topic of trust, and 69% agree that there are multiple stakeholders involved in driving trust in their organisation.
- For the most part, trust is on the horizon: 76% of organizations anticipate having a formal framework in place to manage and resolve trust concerns within six months to two years.
According to OneTrust’s research, CISOs in particular expressed more positive attitudes towards the importance of trust and the problems that it entails. This comes amid ongoing cyber risks and new securities rules that could make CISOs accountable for data breaches as they face heightened legal scrutiny.
- 74% of CISOs, compared to 69% overall, agree that it is difficult to innovate and thrive without trust.
- 80% of CISOs believe it is difficult to manage all of the expectations in their role in order to maintain trust, compared to 64% overall.
“Societal, digital, and economic shifts have recalibrated what good looks like in business,” stated OneTrust Founder and CEO Kabir Barday. “Today, stakeholders want to know how a company drives profits and innovation, but demonstrating compliance in areas such as privacy, security, ethics, and ESG is no longer sufficient.” Companies must demonstrate to stakeholders that they can be trusted by conducting business ethically and with integrity. Trust has fast progressed from a competitive advantage to a vital enabler of innovation, particularly in accelerating the effect of revolutionary technologies such as AI.”
“While companies widely agree on the benefits of building trust,” said Catherine A. Tomasi, Director and Chief Privacy Officer at Con Edison, “formal trust programmes are still in their infancy if established at all beyond a concept or conversation.” “Trust is not a one-size-fits-all issue that can be solved by simply deploying new tools and technologies.” Some of the most crucial and basic processes, such as determining how to measure trust, gaining buy-in, securing budget, or identifying owners across the organisation, continue to be the most difficult since they are unique to each business.”