A recent study from Microsoft and IDC Asia Pacific showed that only less than half (44%) of consumers in the Philippines believed that their personal data will be treated in a trustworthy manner by organizations offering digital services. Despite the boom of digital services in the Philippines like in the field of finance and health, consumers are becoming more aware of the cybersecurity risks and the risks to the privacy of their personal data, not just from cybercriminals but also from organizations holding on to their personal data.
The study, which surveyed 454 consumers in the Philippines, asked respondents to provide their opinions on the five elements of trust jointly defined by IDC and Microsoft – namely privacy, security, reliability, ethics, and compliance – when using digital services.
The data revealed that more than two out of five (44%) consumers have had their trust compromised when using digital services. Because of this, more than half (57%) of the respondents would switch to another organization, while two out of five (38%) would reduce the usage of the digital service. Close to one-third (31%) of consumers would stop using the digital service altogether.
It also revealed that consumers feel that all five elements of trust are almost equally important to them. Security (87%), privacy (93%) and compliance (89%) emerged as the top three most important elements. Consumers also have the highest expectations of trust from financial services institutions, followed by education institutions and healthcare organizations.
As organizations in the Philippines continue to transform their business models, offerings and customer engagement strategies, the range of digital services available to consumers continues to grow in number and variety.
The data showed that establishing a trusted platform needs to be a priority in organizations’ strategy for digital services as only 6% of consumers prefer to transact with an organization that offers a cheaper but less trusted digital platform. Additionally, almost three out of four (73%) of consumers highlighted that they would recommend a trusted digital service to others even if the cost is higher.
As technology continues to transform how we live, work and play, all stakeholders in the industry providing digital services and harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) should be responsible for fulfilling the five elements of trust with their customers directly. However, the responsibility of building trust should not just be on the shoulders of these organizations providing digital services but also the broader industry, including government institutions and technology companies.
According to the study, Filipinos think that the government (44%) should take the lead in building trust, followed by technology companies (35%) indicating the need for a stronger partnership between governments and technology companies.
There are five recommendations for building trust in digital asia pacific:
- Trust should be the foundation of digital transformation plans.
- Security and privacy are the two most important trust elements.
- Dialogue between governments, technology companies, and other industry stakeholders are needed.
- Build an ecosystem of partners that value trust.
- Build digital services on trusted public cloud platform.
