60% of digital businesses will face service failures by 2020: Gartner

By 2020, 60% of digital businesses will face service failures because they are unable to manage digital risks, a research by Gartner has found.

The study highlights five ways organisations can manage such risks, and provides insights for governments turning to digital. It calls on organisations to build new skills and practices.

Professionals need to understand the risks involved, and trial new innovative approaches. They should also “re-evaluate and evolve the capabilities of their teams” so they are secure when trying out new solutions, Gartner stated in the report.

Businesses should also focus on people, rather than technical issues. In many organisations, cybersecurity “has been written off as a technical problem”, it stated.

Businesses can change people’s behavior by applying digital ethics at work; they can engage customers in new ways to build trust, and assure customers of their data privacy.

Third, they have to address weaknesses in cloud. Security systems need to be updated to protect new infrastructures.

Data used to be stored in data centres, but has now moved beyond to cloud and software services that are no longer directly owned by them.

Next, organisations should appoint “digital risk officers”, it says. These officers will address the threats across IT, the Internet of Things and operational technology.

Risk and security professionals should be prepared to take up more responsibilities, it stated. Lastly, organisations as a whole need to respond effectively to risks.

Full protection from threats is not achievable, it says. Organisations should establish clear steps to recover from attacks.