Producing real change isn’t based on one-time occasional actions, but is rather the product of careful consistent processes. This mantra can be applied to our digital world, where the adoption of new technologies only truly takes hold when people actually use them — particularly when it comes to cybersecurity solutions.
The cybersecurity benefits that come with encryption can only be realized when the encryption experience is consistent — for your employees, your customers and your partners. This article covers why encryption consistency is difficult, a natural extension approach to encryption and how consistency enhances the customer experience.
Why it is difficult to offer a consistent, enterprise-grade user experience?
In many enterprise-level organizations, employees are scattered across the globe, working from anywhere at any time and with any device.
The realities of today’s digital workplace include:
- Mobile employees, who expect to work from anywhere via any device
- Evolving security demands of clients, partners and vendors
- Zero tolerance policies for business risk and disruption
- Controlling data after it leaves the organization, while ensuring it only reaches intended recipients
- Cybersecurity threats — both of internal and external origin
- International privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which dictate business processes.
At any given time, organizations have employees accessing secure information via desktop and mobile devices, on or off the company network. Even the reality of business travelers accessing secure documents — while on the road, without reliable access to the Internet — presents an encryption problem.
This new digital workplace makes it difficult to implement a consistent encryption experience because there are many user types, each with different needs. A one-size-fits-all solution may sound divine but is unlikely to provide a consistent experience when offered to real customers in real world situations.
How a natural extension approach increases encryption consistency
Security administrators must balance user-experience with airtight encryption algorithms and — much like a tightrope walker — when these features are unbalanced, the risk of danger increases exponentially.
While an out-of-the-box encryption solution might seem simple, it doesn’t always provide the right balance of security and usability. An inconsistent user experience can lead to frustration and open the door to less secure workarounds. For example, a recent Echoworx survey found that only 40 per cent of organizations that have encryption capabilities use them across the business.
Pairing your current solution with a suitable encryption extension gives you access to innovative enhancements that boost adoption rates and consistency.
Look for a natural encryption extension that:
- Has a flexible platform that can quickly integrate and adapt to any environment.
- Provides policy-based support of multiple brands and languages, based on organization, sender and recipient attributes.
- Gives a user-friendly experience which promotes adoption for senders and recipients.
- Is designed for high volume encryption with secure bulk messaging capabilities — to meet enterprise-level demands.
- Offers a variety of secure delivery options, including fallback options, so that all messages are protected.
- Delivers a return on investment. For example, a recent Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study, found that a typical enterprise-level organization using Echoworx’s OneWorld encryption platform can expect an ROI of 155 per cent — with upwards of $2.7M in cost-mitigating benefits.
How consistent encryption enhances the customer experience
Offering a consistent user experience is better for your customer, wherever they are. For example, an organization with offices around the world can use Echoworx’s OneWorld encryption platform to deliver a consistent brand, domain and user experience across all secure communications, regardless of the sender and recipient locations.
You may wonder how this works. The platform supports 22 languages and uses organizational attributes to personalize and dynamically brand outgoing encrypted messages by brand, division or location. These rules are set up during implementation and based on business use cases.
If you take advantage of branding and language preferences, your clients will consistently see that the secure message originated from a reputable source — your organization — and that it isn’t spam. This approach builds trust with customers and while trust may be easy to gain in the digital world, it’s even easier to lose. Encryption is so intertwined with client trust, satisfaction and retention, it’s now a business necessity.
But it’s a business necessity that pays for itself.
The Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study also found that a typical enterprise-level organization using Echoworx’s OneWorld encryption platform can achieve a payback period of seven months, eliminate $67K from the cost of custom email domain branding and slash costs of on-premise legacy encryption by $793K over a three-year period.
At Echoworx, encryption is all we do, and we do it consistently. Our OneWorld encryption platform and cloud security services are a natural extension to existing security programs and offer a wide range of flexible options for secure message delivery. You can learn more about the ROI of Echoworx OneWorld encryption here.
By Derek Christiansen, Engagement Manager, Echoworx
