Digital Challenges Traditional Business Processes

In today’s globally connected world there are plenty of drivers for firms to adapt: to stay relevant, to make sure their business processes are optimised and to, in general, keep up with the speed of business. 

Faxes may be a thing of the past for most of us, we now send (far too many) emails. But, in many cases, rather than send attachments, we now send links to downloadable files. It only makes sense as email attachments are often limited in their size and Cloud storage is now a commodity but this opens up a Pandora’s Box of new digital security threats: which vendor do we use? Dropbox? WeTranfer? How much can we trust a third party Software as a Service with our client’s extremely sensitive financial documents? 

Of course, this is the domain of the risk and security leaders in a firm, who are literally paid to be conservative and risk-averse in their view of all business processes. It’s no secret that it is often the risk and security policy or the department itself that pushes back on digital business initiatives, adaptation and innovation, ironically exposing the enterprise to even larger risk.

There is no one alive in the business world today that has not had to adapt their business processes over the past ten years. You may not have had a smartphone back then but can probably not imagine a workday without your mobile now. You’ve adapted. Your risk management policy has to adapt, too.

¹ Gartner, Managing Risk and Security at the Speed for Digital Business.