How Fortune 500s are Building Brand Value by Communicating Security Posture

Security concerns are top of mind with customers, so organizations can leverage security and compliance posture to build market trust.

Transparency and Trust

Fortune 500 companies are rethinking the way they talk publicly about security. Leading tech sector brands are finding ways to be more transparent and prepared to disclose their compliance status to customers, partners, suppliers, and regulators.

Compliance may seem like a redundant and time-consuming project, but the bottom line is that it exists to protect your customers from being misled and deceived. Compliance also protects the company brand and reputation from being tarnished and prevents devastating financial penalties from regulators.

Customers today want to buy with confidence. They want their privacy assured. They demand that their providers prove their worth and trust. Those companies, in turn, can better communicate their cyber integrity, resulting in new capabilities that:

• Attract new customers
• Retain existing customers
• Boost internal morale
• Recruit the best talent

Tech sector leaders are prioritizing and achieving positive customer perception of their security posture and compliance status. Here are some best practices and examples of successful cyber promotion techniques:

Arm your sales team with your security differentiators

Many organizations strategically work with their security and compliance partners to create bespoke sales training and enablement content to ensure their sellers can speak confidently to their security stature and relay those value propositions in customer conversations.

Make sure your divisional managers and front-line reps clearly understand what makes the security of your product or service different and better. Enable your sales and support teams with the ability to embed security value propositions into selling and service processes, and to be able to compare your compliance and assurance advantages directly with your competitors.

Communicate how you safeguard data

More Fortune 500 organizations than ever are advertising security, privacy, compliance, and trust centers on their websites, showcasing their risk management practices and policies.

Take Microsoft, for example. In this age of exposed software product lifecycles and supply chains, Microsoft’s customers want to know what the company is doing to assure application security. In response, the company provides a robust Trust Center that spans security, privacy, and compliance information across its entire suite of products. The message is clear: Microsoft’s culture of security prioritization starts with vigorous product testing throughout the entire software development lifecycle. This instills confidence by giving customers more transparency into the processes, procedures, and controls that Microsoft uses to protect their data.

Customer confidence is enhanced with these demonstrations of cyber transparency. By providing open access to information like this, prospects and stakeholders can better understand how an organization manages data and how it keeps confidential information secure and protected.

Assist customers in meeting their own compliance obligations

Amazon Web Services (AWS) sets a great example of how to be a good cyber citizen. In addition to providing an information portal where industry-specific certifications are available, AWS also helps guide clients and prospects through the maze of regulations and frameworks that educate and align with the changing compliance landscape.

Many organizations face challenges in complying with today’s complex data privacy regulations and industry standards. Helping your customer on their compliance journey goes a long way in building a relationship based on trust.

Publish your certifications and explain standards and regulations

Salesforce provides an extensive compliance list on its website that outlines and explains the certifications, standards, and regulations they’ve achieved, including SOC, FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and ISO 27001.

An easy-access listing like this is a great way to amplify customer trust with your organization’s earned “seals of approval” and to highlight organizational discipline and dedication to state-of-the-art standards.

Coalfire helps promote your compliance posture and enables customer-facing teams

These examples from large enterprise leaders validate security as a top priority and a means to build business value. They remind us never to underestimate the power of engaging our customers with the transparent, living, breathing security personality of our brands.

Coalfire’s Market Development Services (MDS) can enable your organization to effectively communicate your cybersecurity posture, arm your sales teams with cyber differentiators, expand into new markets, and accelerate prospect pipelines with the following services:

• Coalfire-branded certificates and digital seals verify compliance adherence that can be shared with customers and constituents and hosted prominently on your website.
• Compliance SME sales call support, where Coalfire’s subject-matter experts can discuss and explain your compliance and cybersecurity posture in technical detail directly with your prospective customers.
• Compliance positioning training, where Coalfire helps create your branded sales presentation and coaches your client-facing teams to tell your compliance story and communicate your commitment to cybersecurity.
• PR and event support that communicates your security thought leadership and culture through trade show presence, social media, press releases, co-branded white papers, and other content strategies.

Contact us today to learn more about how your organization can leverage MDS to turn marketing compliance initiatives into your competitive advantage.