In the digital economy, data is like oxygen — giving life to innovation. And just as important, data security establishes the trust needed for that data to deliver value.

In fact, organizations with the most advanced security capabilities delivered 43% higher revenue growth than peers over a five-year period, according to research from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBM IBV).

Yet, when corrupted or exposed through cyberattacks, data can fuel disruption. The cost of a data breach averaged almost $10 million in 2022 for U.S. organizations. When trust in data is broken, it impedes business growth and drives up spending.

The most successful Chief Data Officers (CDOs) navigate this challenge by establishing trust based on a strong foundation of secure data and then using that trusted data to accelerate opportunities. That is the clear takeaway from two recent studies of more than 3,300 CDOs, conducted independently by the IBM IBV and by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

CDOs in the IBM IBV study cited data security as their most critical responsibility. Similarly, respondents in the AWS CDO Agenda noted data governance — an essential element of data security — as their top priority.

The highest-performing CDOs take these priorities a step further. The IBM IBV study identified an elite group of CDOs who outperform peers by 40% in innovation and 10% in revenue growth. A critical differentiating trait: the way they align data security strategy with operations and technology strategies. They place a stronger emphasis than peers on cybersecurity and data privacy, on transparency in data architecture, and on trust in data effectiveness.

Explore the Report

Supercharging data innovation

Like brakes on a race car, strong data security helps organizations move confidently and realize value from data more efficiently. Businesses can dare to go faster and take risks knowing they have effective controls in place.

The data security agenda is moving to the fore as organizations prepare for new capabilities like generative AI and quantum-safe cryptographic standards.  For large organizations, the challenges are considerable. Organizations operating across multiple clouds and multiple jurisdictions need to manage data security policies and controls that are location, environment, or workload specific.

If not well-integrated into architecture and operations, data compliance can become unduly complicated — in ways that demand additional resources or impact the organization’s agility.  Customers migrating data and workloads to AWS or between public and private clouds need to understand the nuances between security responsibilities for on-premises versus in-cloud environments. As part of this new landscape, organizations face a variety of security challenges: protecting and ensuring visibility across data silos, accommodating the surge in remote work, and enforcing a variety of different data compliance standards throughout the greater enterprise. The ability to serve data that is secure and trusted, at any point across the operations lifecycle, is key to success.

Leading CDOs from the IBM IBV study illustrate the point. Their organizations use modern security controls and security practices to help protect data from unauthorized access, to help ensure data privacy, and to manage regulatory compliance and governance as competitive differentiators. They establish a security foundation that positions them to more quickly achieve operational goals — from increasing revenue and profits, to improving customer relationships and marketing, to enabling new products and services, processes, business models, and strategies.

By aligning their data, operations, technology, and security strategies to the organization’s primary business objective, or “North Star,” data leaders help strengthen their data security and establish the trust required to fuel better decisions and better performance (see figure below). They cultivate a culture where collaboration is the norm and data security permeates the organization.

The practices that drive results at these leading organizations can be emulated by any organization. As these leaders demonstrate, if applied in a systematic and rigorous way, basic security measures lead to greater data agility and, ultimately, better business outcomes.

Download the report — co-authored with AWS — to explore the data security practices and principles behind the success of leading CDOs. An action guide offers short- and longer-term suggestions for how you can use data security to accelerate your path to value. And to learn more about IBM’s data security offerings on AWS, download this white paper.

More from Data Protection

Access control is going mobile — Is this the way forward?

2 min read - Last year, the highest volume of cyberattacks (30%) started in the same way: a cyber criminal using valid credentials to gain access. Even more concerning, the X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2024 found that this method of attack increased by 71% from 2022. Researchers also discovered a 266% increase in infostealers to obtain credentials to use in an attack. Family members of privileged users are also sometimes victims.“These shifts suggest that threat actors have revalued credentials as a reliable and preferred…

Ransomware on the rise: Healthcare industry attack trends 2024

4 min read - According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million this year, a 10% increase over 2023.For the healthcare industry, the report offers both good and bad news. The good news is that average data breach costs fell by 10.6% this year. The bad news is that for the 14th year in a row, healthcare tops the list with the most expensive breach recoveries, coming in at $9.77…

Cost of a data breach: Cost savings with law enforcement involvement

3 min read - For those working in the information security and cybersecurity industries, the technical impacts of a data breach are generally understood. But for those outside of these technical functions, such as executives, operators and business support functions, “explaining” the real impact of a breach can be difficult. Therefore, explaining impacts in terms of quantifiable financial figures and other simple metrics creates a relatively level playing field for most stakeholders, including law enforcement.IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach (“CODB”) Report helps…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today