IDC Analyst Brief Findings: Trust Centers Can Help Organizations Save Time and Accelerate Sales

Originally published by Vanta.

It's never been more important for organizations to demonstrate their security practices in order to win the trust of customers.

‍Historically, companies have used static web pages to demonstrate their security posture. And while these can act as helpful marketing tools, these pages don't provide enough evidence for customers to evaluate a vendor’s security program. This leads to lengthy email threads and manual processes in order to manage incoming customer requests.

‍To that end, it's critical for organizations to go beyond simple web pages and adopt a trust center that holistically displays and manages information about their security and compliance. This type of trust center enables prospects and customers to self-serve the information they need for vendor reviews, automate manual processes, and continuously monitor the organization's security posture.

‍A recent IDC Analyst Brief, Building Customer Confidence: How Trust Centers Save Time and Accelerate Sales (June 2024), finds that trust centers are an invaluable part of any organization’s security, privacy, and compliance strategy. A strong trust center can save your security team’s time, improve your organization’s trustworthiness, and accelerate sales. To unlock this value, it’s important to thoughtfully develop your trust center in a way that enhances the customer experience, making it easy for customers to find the information they need without putting additional work on your security team’s plate.

‍The brief highlights the benefits your organization can realize from developing a strong trust center and covers key considerations for trust center implementations.

‍Here is a summary of the insights from IDC:

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Trust centers are the greatest contributor to brand trustworthiness

As third-party data breaches increase, organizations are growing more concerned about the vulnerability of their vendors, resulting in greater scrutiny of vendor security programs and postures. As customers ask for more details about the controls, policies, and protections a vendor has in place, security reviews have grown longer and require more effort from security teams to fill out.

‍A trust center can provide the assurance these customers need while reducing the burden on your security team—enabling your business to proactively build trust with your customers and prospects. IDC’s research found that trust centers are the greatest contributor to brand trustworthiness when it comes to compliance and that visitors to trust centers took note of an organization's "commitment and willingness to be compliant and maintain that compliance" via a strong trust center.

IDC Analyst Brief, Building Customer Confidence: How Trust Centers Save Time and Accelerate Sales (June 2024)‍

Security teams can save hours on security reviews with a strong trust center

One of the biggest benefits of these new and highly-capable trust centers is that it can save your security team hours on security reviews, giving them more time to focus on strengthening your security program.

IDC Analyst Brief, Building Customer Confidence: How Trust Centers Save Time and Accelerate Sales (June 2024)‍

As customers use your trust center to self-serve the security information that they need, security reviews change from high-touch interactions to low- or no-touch interactions. The best trust centers leverage integrations with questionnaire automation workflows that pull information from the trust center to answer common questions from security questionnaires. This allows your customers to complete their vendor reviews with limited or no involvement from your security team.

‍Additionally, by automating inbound requests for security documentation and enabling secure access via CRM integrations, your security team will have less requests to manage and your customers will be able to get access sooner.

‍When it comes to internal team processes, survey respondents told IDC that ease of information access was the number one benefit of great trust centers as it helps them efficiently update documentation as their security program evolves.

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A quality trust center can drive revenue growth

IDC’s research also reveals that a well-maintained trust center can be a determining factor in a customer’s purchasing decision. In a global survey of IT decision makers and buyers, vendors that were considered for purchase but ultimately not selected were rated as “most weak” in their trust center offering. Vendors that were selected for purchase or partnership had quality trust centers that were considered among the best in the industry.

IDC Analyst Brief, Building Customer Confidence: How Trust Centers Save Time and Accelerate Sales (June 2024)

A trust center can not only sway your customer’s purchasing decision, but can also shorten deal cycles. As customers are able to access the security documents they need and streamline the security review process, deals are closed much faster. IDC’s Worldwide Future of Trust Survey found that there is a statistically significant relationship between the quality of a trust center and revenue growth.

‍Additionally, trust centers can increase the reliability of your organization’s compliance. Best-in-class trust centers enable continuous compliance that provides up-to-date information in near real time. This always-on compliance can enable your business to set itself apart from your competitors and move away from annual or semi-annual maintenance and point-in-time security checks.

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Trust centers must be thoughtfully designed

While there are clear benefits to implementing a trust center, IDC finds that a trust center must be carefully crafted to address customer needs.

‍Respondents who indicated that their vendor’s trust center was weak said this was due to a lack of clarity on certifications, supported regulations, alignment, and frameworks—which will lead to lost opportunities, partnerships, and decreased customer loyalty. On the vendor side, eighty-four percent of security leaders report their trust center has room for improvement with a third of those leaders saying it needs “major improvements” or “a complete overhaul.”

‍With trust being a crucial part of any sale, it’s important that your organization take action to improve your trust centers now—or watch as your competitors who do invest in their trust centers take the lead in the market.

‍Read the full IDC Analyst Brief to learn more about the impact a trust center could have on your organization.

‍IDC Analyst Brief, Building Customer Confidence: How Trust Centers Save Time and Accelerate Sales (doc #US52372124, June 2024), sponsored by Vanta