81% of the respondents in the Cisco 2022 Consumer Privacy Survey agreed with the statement, “I believe the way a company treats my personal data is indicative of the way it views me as a customer.” The same survey indicated that 89% of respondents cared about data privacy and having more control over their data. As a SaaS vendor, you must follow compliance standards and do your best to protect customer data.
Compliance increases customer trust
When you have compliance certificates and follow the regulations set by the government, your data will be much more secure. To inform your customers, you can display your compliance certificates on your website, social media, and sales materials. 20% of customers believe that if vendors follow the laws, they can trust them more. The following figure shows how customers prioritize security:
43% of customers don’t trust organizations to follow standard policies (Cisco). So if you want to earn consumer trust, you can have your organization audited for compliance by a third party and publicize that certificate.
Compliance decreases third-party risks
Being compliant with relevant standards can help you evaluate your information systems thoroughly. You can know and patch your vulnerabilities before achieving the certification. It gives you a clearer picture of your information security. Patching your vulnerabilities in time can reduce your risks drastically.
Secondly, when you follow compliance standards, they mandate periodic audits of your information system. This will keep you on your toes, but on a positive note, it will help you keep your systems up-to-date.
Lastly, compliance forces you to follow specific procedures while carrying out routine activities. These procedures are designed to improve the security of your information. It helps you keep cybercriminals at bay.
Compliance can help avoid fines and penalties
If your systems are breached, and it is found that you have not followed specified processes, you will have to bear the fines and penalties laid down by regulatory bodies. These fines can be extremely taxing for your business. For example, Meta-owned Instagram was found guilty of not maintaining children’s privacy and was asked to pay an enormous GDPR fine of €405 million towards the end of 2022.
Compliance boosts an organization’s reputation
An average of 37% of consumers switched organizations after a breach (Cisco). It is a direct indication that if your organization is breached, your reputation will suffer, and so will your turnover. It is imperative that you maintain the highest level of security and compliance standards if you want to retain consumers.
Additionally, compliance can certainly attract new clients. If your organization has a reputation for securing client data, more and more customers will be attracted to you. SaaS vendors deal with a lot of consumer data, and being a service provider, a large percentage of their customers will come from referrals by the old ones. Keeping their data safe and reputation impeccable will lead a business to newer heights.
Compliance improves an organization’s efficiency and effectiveness
Compliance ensures that the policies and procedures followed in the organization are well-designed. Therefore, the operations of the organization will be efficient. No job will be duplicated, and there won’t be a lag in data transfer.
Plus, the organization might not be breached, and thus the time and efforts spent in recovery will be utilized efficiently.
Winding up
With infosec compliance solutions like Scrut, SaaS companies have the opportunity to eradicate the laborious and error-prone aspects of compliance tasks and implementation. Infosec compliance empowers SaaS companies to efficiently oversee multiple security compliance requirements through a unified dashboard. This has the potential to revolutionize how SaaS companies address data and privacy protection policies, ensuring that essential standards are met while optimizing the user experience.
If you’re interested in discovering more about Scrut’s services, don’t hesitate to schedule a demo today!
FAQs
Infosec compliance refers to rules and regulations followed by an organization to ensure data security and privacy.
SaaS companies hold enormous amounts of customer data. They also provide software services to their customers. If a SaaS vendor is breached, many of their customers would face secondary attacks. Therefore, SaaS vendors must ensure that they follow mandatory and regulatory compliance requirements.
Some of the examples of regulatory compliance and frameworks are GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and FISMA.
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Megha Thakkar has been weaving words and wrangling technical jargon since 2018. With a knack for simplifying cybersecurity, compliance, AI management systems, and regulatory frameworks, she makes the complex sound refreshingly clear. When she’s not crafting content, Megha is busy baking, embroidering, reading, or coaxing her plants to stay alive—because, much like her writing, her garden thrives on patience. Family always comes first in her world, keeping her grounded and inspired.
