Doha: Organisations across the region are increasingly embracing a ‘digital-first’ approach and accelerating their digital initiatives in a bid to remain resilient and navigate the uncertain times. Digital trust is emerging as one of the top priorities for companies, said experts during an event.
International Data Corporation (IDC) organised the GCC edition of the IDC Security Roadshow 2021 - ‘Reimagining Security and Digital Trust for the Digital-First Organization’. The virtual event explored the latest developments in the region’s security market and addressed the challenges that organisations are facing in and rapidly changing threat landscape and provided expert strategic guidance for security professionals.
Shaik Abdulkhader, Chief Information Security Officer at Qatar Petrochemical Company (QAPCO), discussed the topic ‘The five stages of enterprise recovery: The vital role of data and trust’ and shed light on future of digital infrastructure, connectedness, the future of trust and ecosystem and the challenges faced. He said, “The pandemic was not an ordinary technology disruption, the technology leaders, companies, and the researchers of organisations had been preparing for it for a long time. A lot of foundation work had been done and we were able to use those foundations to leverage and cater to the requirements.”
Speaking about the changes and strategic drivers that has shifted as a result of the pandemic, he noted, adopting good collaboration tools and techniques in terms of workplace, training, learning and working together with geographical distributed teams will help and is an important factor in terms of change. Building digitally business strategy and agile programs is the need during this crisis to manage the challenges of seismic shift and prepare for the next major disruption, highlighting that organisations need to be agile in its function and be resilient in terms of technology.
He added “A complete shift towards digitalisation took time for people to adopt the change which was a challenge for everybody and led to more open concept of invest for business value and agility rather than just investing in technology. The shift that has happened in the past two years (which was traditionally focused on information protection) is dedicated to managing risks and creating business values.”
According to IDC, overall annual cybersecurity spending in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa will top $4bn by 2023 as it increases at a CAGR of 7.2% over the 2020-2025 period. Digital trust — which incorporates not only cybersecurity but also privacy, risk, and ethics — is emerging as a key priority for digital-first organisations and consumers, business leaders, and technology suppliers, who must expand their understanding of trust and its importance if they are to success in the new digital economy.
He stressed on having a security hygiene as part of the culture as cyber security success comes from being tightly integrated with business and the strategy has to be in line with bigger purpose of the organisation. There are so many basic hygiene requirements to accelerate and to ensure that the employees working are having effective cyber security awareness programs, he added.
