Let’s build on trust!

Veera Relander

Veera Relander

Head of Business & Delivery Management

October 9, 2017 at 10:30

In today’s society, trust is immensely precious to everyone, not only to consumers but also to companies and organizations whose business relies on digitalization. How we build and maintain that trust is a very topical issue in which cybersecurity has a key role to play. October is the official European Cyber Security Month and it is being celebrated for the fifth time this year with the important goal of highlighting the importance of cybersecurity in society.

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Luckily, trust came up in more than one of the best speeches at the Nordic Business Forum last week. It’s a no-brainer that trust correlates highly with the cybersecurity business. You need to have trust, otherwise you will be out of business. You need to be able to maintain trust, every day, otherwise you may as well cheer on your competitors while they’re winning over your customers. In this business, you sell trust. But that is not enough. You also need to earn the trust of your people to be able to provide trust as a service. Without trust, you have nothing.  

Rachel Botsman, a highly talented lecturer and influencer, was spot-on when she shared her views on collaboration and trust in the digital era at the Nordic Business Forum. How can we win the race in today’s world, which is full of uncertainty? How can we beat the massive dinosaurs of the business world, with their years of experience and long-lasting customer relations, with our fresh new ideas? How can we use crowd-sourcing for renting out a flat or a car or possibly something even more obvious in the future? By creating trust. We have plenty of tools that use faith in people’s identities, previous behavior, and so on to lower the barrier for interaction. By the way, according to Rachel Botsman, Airbnb is nowadays the second most valuable hospitality brand in the world, with a valuation of USD 31 billion.

Patrick Lencioni, a teamwork and leadership wizard (and a brilliant speaker!), shared some very useful ideas about trust. His view was more from an internal perspective, and the main message was about trust creation happening through making yourself vulnerable in the eyes of others, especially in the leadership context. I totally agree with Patrick on this. Personally, I believe in leadership by example. What you do is what you can expect from others. If you want your team to open up, then you should do that yourself – you need to show the way. Showing humanity and vulnerability never killed nobody; instead it makes your stronger, more human. In the end, business is about interaction between people.

I head a sales team at Nixu with a mission of creating trust, both internally and externally. First with our clients and then for our clients. We can provide concrete tools for creating institutional trust (as Rachel Botsman calls it) through technologies and expertise. Most of all, my team and I have a mission to create trust with our clients on a daily basis. I hope we succeed because it’s a win-win game.

Nixu wants to be the trusted go-to partner in cybersecurity in Northern Europe. We would be happy to build trust between you and us and then help you to build it with your customers and stakeholders. Please contact us for more detailed information about ways to earn and maintain trust.

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