Organizations in all industries are becoming more reliant on digital technology to do their tasks. In this digital transformation era, technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), social media, machine learning (ML), big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality are available to assist enterprises in achieving their strategic business objectives.
Finally, these new technologies are meant to increase the speed, agility, efficiency, and profitability of the enterprises that use them. Whether you want to improve your customer experience, streamline your processes, or adopt new business models, these are often the driving motivations behind an organization’s choice to implement new digital projects.
Digital Risks You Should Be Aware Of
You’ll probably discover that many of the most frequent forms of digital dangers have overlapping repercussions when you learn more about them. As a result, putting a solution in place to solve one of them may eventually help you handle others.
Cybersecurity Danger
The danger of a cyberattack — an attempt by a malicious actor (or actors) to damage or destroy a computer network or systems — is referred to as cybersecurity risk. Cybersecurity risk is likely one of the most important — and growing — types of digital risk today, given the context of a growing attack surface in an increasingly sophisticated threat environment.
Workforce Risk
Despite the fact that businesses rely largely on technology to carry out their business procedures, the human element of risk will always be an issue to consider. Your employees, whether purposefully or unwittingly, put your firm at danger in a variety of ways.
Because of the dynamic nature of today’s workforce and the gig economy, your firm may encounter a number of challenges when it comes to talent acquisition. Finding staff who are well-versed in developing technology is difficult enough, but maintaining those specialists in their sector can be even more difficult.
Cloud Risk
As more businesses migrate to the cloud, a slew of new risks emerge, including changes in the architecture, construction, deployment, and/or administration of new digital business processes or information technology (IT) systems.
If your company has already converted to cloud computing, you’re certainly aware of some of the hazards connected with public cloud providers in particular. Cloud outages, in particular, are an essential consideration when considering whether or not to use cloud technologies. As a result, several firms have adopted a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy, which can also present a variety of dangers.
Risk of Noncompliance
These are hazards associated with compliance requirements driven by new technology and the volume of data generated by your firm. With any new technology, new regulations or guidelines must typically be established, or you risk noncompliance with regulatory requirements for corporate operations, data retention, and other business practices.
As new technologies develop, compliance standards evolve as well. As a result, you must ensure that your organization’s compliance is up to date in real time, or risk hefty fines – or even jail time.
Third-Party Risk
Organizations in almost every industry now work with a third party, whether it’s a supplier, vendor, contractor, or service provider. Whatever the nature of your partnership, your firm most likely relies on third parties to fulfill a variety of key business services.
Outsourcing to a third party, on the other hand, unavoidably introduces risk. Whether for legal, compliance, financial, strategic, or reputational reasons, relying on third parties to fulfill their end of a commercial deal exposes your organization to a variety of potential interruptions.
Technology Risk
There is usually a learning curve with any new technology. As your business becomes more acquainted to the new technologies on which it relies, you’re likely to see a number of new dangers that weren’t previously obvious.