In 2013, the world came across Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who told the world about how US citizens were unlawfully surveilled. About a decade later, concerns among users of various companies are growing every day regarding protecting their personal data.
As per Cisco Consumer Privacy Survey 2021, 86% of the people who participated in the study care about their data privacy. Meanwhile, 79% said that they are willing to protect it. This anxiety has thus caught the attention of various governing bodies worldwide, who want to ensure that user’s personal data is protected.
This has become an issue for businesses, especially Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses that heavily rely on sharing and receiving user information to optimize the user experience. To curb this problem for the companies, many governing bodies worldwide have come up with their own version of Information Security (Infosec) Compliances that are often inconsistent. Despite the differences, the goal to avoid being disrupted by data and security breaches drives information security compliance within every business.
Secure Infosec practices help close deals
Information security plays a critical role for SaaS businesses, especially in this time and age. One instance this can be highlighted is through investors. For any B2B SaaS venture to start or scale, attracting customers is one of the primary goals that can either make or break your entire business. However, customers are not just concerned about the product capabilities and customer success support, but also about the knowledge of how secure your business is.
You may need to demonstrate compliance with industry standards and/or submit a security questionnaire detailing how your application will securely handle their data to secure B2B vendors. Proof, such as a compliance certificate or a penetration testing certificate, is frequently required to close customers. These may also frequently alter as, and when industry standards are revised, new dangers emerge, and technological advances emerge.
Compliance with the information security standards will help you close deals and generate revenue.
Infosec helps limit third-party risk
According to PWC’s October 2021 research, 46 percent of organizations have assessed or validated third-party or supplier security posture and compliance. Furthermore, 42% recently revised their criteria for onboarding and analyzing the security risk of third parties, and 40% rewrote contracts with third parties to limit risks.
This doesn’t come as a surprise because information security is leading the SaaS industry. It provides you enough flexibility to gather whether you or your vendors have the required security controls to protect the data of your client.
A strong Infosec posture helps build a great user experience, without compromising on data security
As we know, SaaS businesses allow customers to access their company’s software on an online platform rather than having it installed on their own computer. This provides many benefits for companies, such as increased security and improved scalability. However, it also means that customer data is stored on servers owned by the service company. This has led many consumers and lawmakers to question whether it is appropriate for these companies to store their personal data.
Infosec drives to find a middle ground between limiting confidential data access to third-party SaaS software and optimizing user experience by allowing access to reasonable data. Making Infosec essential has been a turning point in ensuring that data privacy is taken care of; however, it doesn’t mean that making Infosec essential hasn’t brought companies benefits.
Benefits of infosec compliance for SaaS companies
In the process of building a strong infosec posture, SaaS companies have experienced benefits like;
1. Avoiding fines and penalties:
Proactive compliance with laws like GDPR enables companies to avoid hefty penalties. It is simply because they have established the right controls in an effort to become Infosec compliant, which enables them to adhere to relevant legislation.
2. Better reputation comes with better relationships:
SaaS companies observe significant business growth after completing compliance, which is not a coincidence. It instills a sense of reliability and credibility for your organization, which results in your customers trusting you with their data.
3. Processing Efficiency and effectiveness:
To remain compliant with new legislation, your company needs to have a structured system in place. This also means that there would be organized information and processing systems, which inevitably increases efficiency.
Working with information security and compliance in a consistent and structured manner makes your day-to-day operations a lot easier. You can be confident and focus your efforts on growing your organization while taking control of information security.
Final Word
Through Infosec Compliance companies like Scrut, SaaS companies can eliminate the manual, error-prone work of compliance tasks and implementation. Infosec Compliance can ensure that SaaS companies can manage to have multiple security compliances under one dashboard. This has the possibility to change the way SaaS companies approach data and privacy protection policies as this can ensure that the right and necessary standards are being met while still optimizing the user’s experience.
Scrut Automation is an innovative and radically simple governance, risk, and compliance automation platform for growing startups and mid-market enterprises. With Scrut, compliance teams can reduce ~70% of their manual effort in continuously maintaining compliance towards SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and CCPA. Schedule your demo today to see how it works.
