Trust management is a growing term in the security field, emerging from the principles of customer trust enhancement and improving security postures. But what is trust management, why does it impact your security stance, and how do you intentionally incorporate it into your greater business operations?
Let’s dive in.
Understanding trust management
Trust management falls under the security and customer success umbrella (not to be confused with the managerial science or act of managing financial assets held in a trust). Trust management is a holistic approach to safeguarding sensitive information, nurturing reliable connections with security stakeholders, and maintaining the integrity of your organization.
Trust management is more than a technological solution, though trust management platforms are emerging to architect trust management as a tangible concept. Customer trust specifically is a complex topic, reaching far beyond the context of security, customer success, or any given function. Therefore, trust management is a living, growing aspect not just in your security posture, but throughout your organization.
At its core, trust management starts with operational culture, then manifests itself into your organization's technical processes and ideas.
The concept of trust management in security
Let’s begin with a simple working definition: trust management is the process of implementing systems and practices that build trust in your organization. It’s an intentional investment in greater security and trust communication, relative to your customers, prospects, and partners.
Trust management involves establishing trust frameworks, implementing protocols for exchanging information securely, and promoting transparency. With the establishment of trust management solutions (like a Trust Center), trust is no longer an abstract concept — rather, it’s a tangible, measurable component of your greater security posture.
Leveraging trust management helps your organization minimize the risk of fraud, data breaches, and other security threats. Technical benefits aside, trust management nurtures a culture of collaboration between employees, leadership, and external partners, as all parties know their interests are protected. This helps you:
- Expand and land new business
- Retain and satisfy existing customers
- Enhance the integrity of external relationships
Let’s look at how trust management and security reinforce each other.
The role of trust management in security
Year over year, cyber threats and data breaches grow in intensity and awareness. Cybersecurity, as a result, is moving up the totem pole of company priorities. Trust management is the response to the growing demand for a proactive approach to business security and integrity. With this in mind, there are two main roles of trust management in security: technical trust management and strategic trust management.
Technical trust management
Trust management builds on the organizational armor, protecting against evolving security threats and how they may impact customer trust. From a technical lens, it uses security measures like encryption, authentication, and access controls to protect sensitive data.
The technical overlap doesn’t stop with tactical security protocols — trust management is essential for establishing secure communication channels inside and outside your organization. Secure data exchange, collaboration, and general information sharing all fall under the trust management umbrella, where transparency and accountability meet security procedure and rigor.
Strategic trust management
While trust management is strategic, it also overlaps with your organization’s greater security strategy. By positioning initiatives like continuous monitoring and updating security procedures, your security posture becomes a trust builder for buyers and partners alike.
Trust management extends beyond core solutions to encompass full organizational policy. It helps define clear roles and responsibilities, establish an ownership culture, and promote a security-conscious perspective for every function. Trust management operates with the assumption that security is core to customer trust, and each role and responsibility in the organization has the potential to impact it.
Trust management ensures security information is both highly accessible and transparent without compromising security, striking the ideal strategic balance for your security posture.
The benefits of trust management
In building a trust management strategy, you’re demonstrating a clear core value for your organization — customer trust is central to how you operate. Aside from the obvious trust building perk, trust management offers a variety of cross-functional benefits, including:
- Enhanced security
- Stronger partnerships
- Improved efficiency
- Increase confidence
- Greater retention and revenue
Enhanced security
Trust management doubles with your security posture to safeguard against internal and external threats. By incorporating customer trust into the security discussion, internal security stakeholders have a more informed perspective to work from, which positively impacts security decision making.
Trust-related documentation i.e. pertinent security information is organized, secured, and centralized in one location with a formalized trust management strategy. This makes the strength and accessibility of your security posture evident, translating to greater trust from customers and partners.
Stronger partnerships
By establishing a foundation of trust, your business enhances long-term partnerships with clients, vendors, and internal teams. Trust management strategy ensures you’re taking initiative on communicating and providing information transparently, strengthening trust in your partnerships.
Improved efficiency
Trust management, particularly a trust management platform, streamlines workflows by reducing the time, energy, and budget spent on security incidents. Building a proactive trust management posture means consolidating all relevant information into a low-friction, highly accessible format, without compromising its integrity. This reduces manual process and operational waste.
Increased confidence
Being forthcoming about prioritizing trust and openness is exactly what your customers and partners love to hear. Displaying a cohesive trust management strategy shows your security competence, while communicating customer-centric intent as a brand. When customer trust is built via trust management, you improve your brand reputation and increase net opportunities long term.
Greater retention and revenue
Trust management is one of the most cross-functional applications for your organization. Improving trust creates a higher perceived value add, serving as a currency everyone from security to sales can cash in on. High-trust organizations attract the perks of improved value perception: improved word-of-mouth (awareness), better product satisfaction (conversions), and increased loyalty (retention).
How to improve trust management
Earlier, we mentioned trust management platforms as a method for employing a trust management strategy. Without a purpose-built structure constructed with both security and transparency in mind, trust management may lack the tangible, tactical edge needed to drive real change in your organization.
The solution? Enter: the trust management platform.
Why use a trust management platform?
A trust management platform, sometimes called a trust center platform, serves as a buyer-facing home for your security and trust posture. Through this platform, buyers and internal teams alike can find the security information and documents they need with little to no friction.
Why would you choose a trust management platform to build trust management (versus an independent application)? Here are a few reasons:
Control
While this seems counterintuitive to transparency, a trust management platform’s permission controls and access management means you won’t have to worry about this information falling into the wrong hands. The platform makes this access control convenient and simple, improving transparency for the right stakeholders.
One source of truth
Using a trust center streamlines everything security and trust-related through one platform. Trust management platforms eliminate unsecured communication channels to request information, or digging through archives and convoluted layers of information storage. What better way to build trust than being intentional and organized?
Eliminating manual process
Trust communication shouldn’t be an unproductive or intimidating task. Using a trust management platform reduces or eliminates the need for inbound security questionnaires and inquiries, reducing the time needed to fully communicate and validate your security posture. This improves internal productivity and enhances the customer experience, further building trust.
Customer experience
The crux of security’s key pain point is accessibility, which organizations incorrectly hinder in the name of security integrity. With a trust management platform, both integrity and accessibility coexist — no more fighting for relevant security documentation like penetration tests, SOC 2 reports, or information security policies. When customers don’t feel like your organization has something to hide (through poor accessibility), they inherently trust you more.
Why trust management should be on your radar
In a digital age where transformation and evolution are touted as the cure-all to your business challenges, one idea remains constant — trust is the foundation upon which successful relationships and collaborations are built. Why not invest in this?
Incorporating trust management demonstrates a commitment to the technical and strategic aspects of your security posture. Using trust management to inform security improves customer trust building from planning to execution. However, trust management is more than a security value add — investing in trust management is investing in your organization’s entire value proposition.
Trust management improves the efficiency of internal operations by building a transparent, proactive stance on trust. By reducing uncertainty within your organization, your external partner network, and prospective buyers, trust management programs directly translate to greater ROI.
SafeBase is the leading Trust Management Platform designed for friction-free security reviews. With an enterprise-grade Trust Center, SafeBase automates the security review process and transforms how companies communicate their security and trust posture.
If you want to see how fast-growing companies like LinkedIn, Asana, and Jamf take back the time their teams spend on security questionnaires, create better buying experiences, and position security as the revenue-driver it is, schedule a demo.
