Organisations with Cybersecurity in Business Strategy Outperform their Peers

Organisations that take a business-driven cybersecurity approach to their digital initiatives achieve better outcomes and outperform their peers, according to PwC’s May 2019 Digital Trust Insights Survey.

The global survey of more than 3,000 executives and IT professionals worldwide found that the top 25% of all respondents, market leaders known as “trailblazers“, are not only leading the way on cybersecurity but also delivering more value and better business outcomes. Among respondents who say growing revenue is the top value sought from digital transformation efforts, nearly nine in 10 trailblazers say they are getting a payoff that meets or exceeds their expectations (compared to 66% of the other respondents).

Trailblazers are also significantly more optimistic about the potential growth in revenue and profit margin for their companies, with 57% percent expecting revenue to grow by 5% or more, and 53% expecting profit margin to grow by 5% or more. The survey revealed key demographic information about trailblazers. Many are large companies; 38% of respondents from companies worth at least US$1 billion are trailblazers.

The financial services (FS) industry and the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sector are particularly well represented in the leader group. Thirty-three percent of FS respondents and 30% of TMT respondents are trailblazers, compared to roughly a quarter of the survey base in other industries. Geographically, just 21% of EMEA respondents are trailblazers, compared to 30% in the Americas, and 30% in Asia Pacific.

The leading behaviours that set trailblazers apart from their corporate peers include aligning their  business and cybersecurity strategies, taking a risk-based approach, and coordinating their teams that manage risk. Key findings illustrate the edge that trailblazers maintain in all three areas. 65% of trailblazers strongly agree their cybersecurity team is embedded in the business, conversant in the organisation’s business strategy and has a cybersecurity strategy that supports business imperatives (vs. 15% of others).

89% of trailblazers say their cybersecurity teams are consistently involved in managing the risks inherent in the organisation’s business transformation or digital initiatives (vs. 41% of others). 77% percent of trailblazers strongly agree their cybersecurity team has sufficient interaction with senior leaders to develop an understanding of the company’s risk appetite around core business practices (vs. 22% of others) More than eight in 10 trailblazers say they have anticipated a new cyber risk to digital initiatives and managed it before it affected their partners or customers (compared to six in 10 of others).