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A recent global study by CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) revealed that firms in Malaysia are reaping business benefits from IT security investments. Great improvements were observed in digital reach, business growth, customer experience and satisfaction with fewer data breaches reported.
The global study by CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA), The Security Imperative: Driving Business Growth in the App Economy, polled 1,770 senior business and IT executives, including more than 100 chief security officers and chief information security officers. Around 800 respondents were from countries in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), including Malaysia. Respondents were surveyed about their attitudes toward IT security practices, and the impact they see it having on their business.
Malaysia ranked high in the areas of improvement of employee productivity, business growth and number of compliance audit failures as a result of the IT security investments. The pay-offs were also seen by the local firms in Malaysia that are reflected in the digital reach, customer experience and employee recruitment and retention following the IT security efforts, which is above average in the region.
91 percent of respondents said there was a need to balance strong security with enabling their business to enter new markets and deliver services in new ways.
91 percent said that security needs to be frictionless and not overburden the user.
88 percent said that identity-centric security was critical to enabling secure access for employees, customers and partners wherever they were, and what device they used.
77 percent said that security was critical to protecting the brand and can be viewed as a competitive differentiator.
More than 70 percent of respondents were using metrics such as number of compliance audit failures, number of breaches, operational or process efficiency, and digital reach.
The majority of survey respondents in Malaysia find IT security such as identity-centric security needs to be more than just protecting the business in today’s security environment. It needs to help build trusted digital relationships that are essential to compete in the application economy and growing the business.
Investing in IT security sees enhancements for firms in Malaysia, across 11 key performance indicators (KPIs) for business since implementation.
Qualitative Indicators
Key Performance Indicator
Percentage of Malaysia firms reporting improvement (%)
Percentage of APJ firms reporting improvement (%)
1. Digital Reach
79%
72%
2. Customer Experience
76%
75%
3. Employee Recruitment and Retention
75%
70%
4. Customer Retention
72%
72%
5. Competitive Differentiation
71%
71%
Quantitative Indicators
Key Performance Indicator
Improvement reported by Malaysia firms (%)
Improvement reported by APJ firms (%)
6. Customer Satisfaction
53%
44%
7. Business Growth
52%
45%
8. Operational Efficiency
51%
44%
9. Employee Productivity
51%
44%
10. Number of Compliance Audit Failures
49%
42%
11. Decrease in number of security breaches
48%
42%
Furthermore, the number of Malaysian firms reporting a decrease in security breaches (15 percent), right above Korea, Indonesia, Australia and Hong Kong shows promising results in IT security improvement.
Overall, the survey shows that 82 percent of the firms in the Malaysia are guarding against IT security breaches by implementing strong, step-up authentication, followed by increasing investment in security to avoid breaches (73 percent), and changed their security practices to focus more on high-risk areas such as privileged identities and their access (64 percent).
“IT security is a business enabler and it is an essential component for companies and corporations in today’s application economy. It drives value and streams new revenue, it is more than just a form of control,” said Nick Lim, vice president, ASEAN and Greater China, CA Technologies. “Firms in Malaysia understand and recognize the potential and this is paying off in the improvements in their KPIs. As consumers continue to have higher expectations of how their information is handled, information security remains a foundation pillar in meeting those expectations and is key to successful digital transformation.”
Conducted by Coleman Parkes, the study included 1,770 senior business and IT executives, including more than 100 CSOs and CISOs, from large enterprises across 21 countries and 10 industry sectors. A total of 799 respondents were from APJ; this covered Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
The study and data analysis was done from May – September 2016. Coleman Parkes Research Ltd, formed in 2000, provides action-focused marketing research on a global scale. The company offers a full research and consultancy service across all markets, while specializing in business-to-business research with a focus on IT, technology and communications research. For more information, please visit www.coleman-parkes.co.uk.
About CA Technologies
CA Technologies (NASDAQ:CA) creates software that fuels transformation for companies and enables them to seize the opportunities of the application economy. Software is at the heart of every business in every industry. From planning, to development, to management and security, CA is working with companies worldwide to change the way we live, transact, and communicate – across mobile, private and public cloud, distributed and mainframe environments. Learn more at www.ca.com.
