The Wall Street Journal recently published an article declaring that directors and executives believe the business environment will be faced with even greater challenges in the coming year, particularly around Digital Transformation. Organisations that have been around for many years have become the digital laggards and are finding it increasingly difficult to transform or become like those that are born in the digital age and taking advantage of digital technologies that are available and are instead grappling with old legacy systems. Similarly, Forbes also recently stated that 70% of all digital technology initiatives do not reach their goals. Both articles however contained similar reasons for the challenges and failures organisations face, noting that while transformations often do not achieve their goals, the key reasons for this are that digital transformation often forgets that it is about people, not the technology.

Enterprisers Project claim three reasons that digital transformations fail which include:

1. Lack of up front commitment, either unwilling to continue the success from the first phase or unwilling to continue to push the organisation further along the path from fear of resistance.
2. Failing to take the iterative approach, which often results in a long-term project resulting in the organisation suffering fatigue before achieving results.
3.  Putting technology at the forefront, which often leaves out the user experience and fails to bring people along for the journey.

HBR offers two reasons for the failure of digital transformation projects which include the unspoken disagreement among the executive resulting in them being not aligned. With the misalignment of the goals, the digital transformation project ultimately fails, while the second reason proffered is the disparate capabilities between the ability to launch a pilot, which is often a success and requires a much smaller commitment than the much larger enterprise approach when scaled up.

A look from another angle finds that there are many approaches to be able to do digital transformation correctly, interestingly the same sources writing about the failures also have gathered insights into that which is needed for their success. Forbes for example discusses the digital transformation failure of many organisations with Michael Gale from PulsePoint group who claimed:

“One of the most basic impediment to moving forward on the road to digital transformation is whether or not enough people within the organization are aware of the challenges. Because if they’re not aware of the challenges the probable truth becomes they’re either going to trip up, fall over and be massively disappointed when it comes to doing it. Basic awareness about those challenges is probably the key indication of how well the process will be successful.

Its quite clear when addressing both the reasons for failure and the bricks of success and that is people. A review of as many failures and successes as you can find and that one constant becomes apparent and that is people. Getting the people component right is the key ingredient and fail that, then digital transformation is just not going to work. Enterprisers Project even outlines four different types:

1. Connectors who are those people that can make the right connections across the organisation
2. Challengers who constantly seek question, raise and offer suggestions of continuous improvement (these are the people that often say ‘why dont we do this instead’.
3. Agilists who adapts to the changes and help to move in the new directions that are required to take advantage of the changes in technology and processes.
4. Navigators help the organisation by being constantly aware of the next technology trend and drive towards that next great change.

Finally, as with any technology project, the people need to be brought along for the ride. Its not about the technology, and if the transformation is made about the technology it will fail.

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• What are the consumers’ expectations with regards to their online identity and access management?
• How well do identity and access management, time-to-market objectives and user experience currently come together for consumer online services?
• How to boost online services adoption through winning consumer identity and access experiences?

Noé was joined by the following two senior financial industry representative and guest speakers: Dr Chris Rathborne, Chief Digital Information Officer in Melbourne, and Phillimon Zongo, Published Author and Cyber Security Advisor in Sydney. Cyber security can be maintained by NDR architecture which can be installed by certain services.

During the Think-Tank sessions, Chris Rathborne and Phillimon Zongo first introduced the subject of consumer digital identity management, respectively in Melbourne and Sydney. They shared their personal and their professional insight to the subject. They also reported the result of their individual research to a very keen audience.

The delegates who joined us, across 6 sessions, then engaged in a very open discussion. The subject of consumer digital identity management was very relevant to all the delegates on both personal and professional accounts. All delegates were web-banking users. They were all, but one, regular online retail shoppers. They all worked for organisations providing some consumer online services. They were all information security savvy. Most delegates agreed that we can now offer secure and password-less authentication solutions for consumers. A few delegates also bravely admitted having not changed their web-banking passwords for quite a long period of time – some of them for more than 10 years.

The following sections provide a summary of the key points discussed during the Think-Tank, most of which were brought by the delegates themselves.

Consumer Digital Identity Management

Managing consumer digital identities is about efficiently connecting people with online services such as web-banking or online-retail applications through web-browsers or mobile applications. Such connections typically involve managing key functions such as identity enrolment (i.e. registering a new user to the application), access (i.e. authentication and authorisation) and other functions such as password reset, change security preferences and terminate accounts.

A speaker, CISO, commented in his FST presentation on the relationship between Customers and Security:

• “Our customers expect us to be open and transparent on security, and to make security easy for them.” – “We have a role to demystify security to our customers”
• “Clients want to know how secure they are and they want options for security. They have their preferences for authentication.”

Phillimon Zongo introducing the Sydney session on March 9

Chris Rathborne introducing the Melbourne session on March 7

According to Phillimon Zongo and his research, businesses have a lot at stake in best managing consumer digital identities. Businesses can satisfy, dissatisfy, lose, gain and retain online customers depending on how they manage digital identities. Zongo refers to a 2016 McKinsey report highlighting:

• “the cost of consumer online authentication-related inconvenience”, such as through “security fatigue” due to password complexity and forced password resets, and
• the opportunity in increasing digital usage by up to 20% when the authentication is deemed “easy” by the consumers.

Chris Rathborne provided a captivating observation on the consumer demographics and the different appreciations and expectations people develop for security preferences based on their socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. He first took example of his teenage daughter who will soon become an active online consumer. Her digital identity will soon be managed by a bank and by many other service providers. She was born in a cyber hyper-connected world where she openly shares online a lot about who she is and what she does. The notion of security is for her more of a transparent or a hidden concept. She doesn’t need or want to see security to build trust towards a service. She doesn’t want anything in the middle of her doing her online business. However, Chris brought another personal example referring to an Eastern European cultural background that he shares with his wife and the strong need to see security to believe it and develop a feeling of trust towards a service.

Consumers develop digital trust differently and they have their preferences.

Guillaume Noé (right), Sydney session on March 9

A Think-Tank delegate sharing his insight in Melbourne

Noé makes an analogy between using an online service for the first time and meeting somebody for the first time. People develop a first impression in both cases based on a wide range of signals. When people meet for the first time, this is about how they present, what they say and how they say it for example. Similarly, when consumers access an online service or an app for the first time, their interaction typically starts with an identity enrolment and an authentication and this is about how the enrolment and the access present, what they do and how they do it. The first impression can range from good to bad. The impression also develops over time and influences the way consumers adopt the service. For instance, some consumers may refrain from using a service more often if the access to the service is not great for them from the beginning. Digital identity management creates a first impression that influences the uptake of online services and apps.

Financial services providers rely on the efficient consumption of their online channels to satisfy their customers and remain competitive. Such consumption is subject to the conundrum of the secure user experience, which Zongo refers to as “efficiently balancing usability and security”. The challenge is about securing transactions well enough while providing a satisfying user experience from the first interaction a user has with a service. The following sections provide an extract of key input provided by the delegates during the Think-Tank sessions.

The double edge risk of the consumer security choice

Most delegates supported in principle the idea of providing some level of choice to their consumers and grant them the option to choose their preferred authentication method within some constraints. For example, some users could authenticate with a username and a password, a biometric or a SMS passcode at their discretion. They could also be less constrained with password policies (e.g. use weaker passwords and no periodic password change mandated).

However, providing a choice may come at some extra risk to the service provider and to the consumer. Consumers can make ill-informed choices, such as using weak passwords that could result in their accounts being compromised. Who is then responsible for the risk increase? Most delegates certainly believed the service provider was most at risk, on both financial and reputational accounts. During the conversation, certain delegates came to question their support for offering a choice. In one of the sessions held, the opinion of the group even shifted sensibly against providing a choice.

To put the risk of the security choice in perspective, Noé shared a personal story of his experience with his first Australian bank. The online banking website relied on a virtual keyboard, scrambling the order of keys every time, to input a web access code to authenticate. The bank probably thought it was a very secure option for their consumers. However, Noé found it very clunky and annoying. It was not easy to use. Security was an obvious challenging step in the middle of application access. Noé’s dissatisfaction developed from his first interaction with the app and the dissatisfaction increased every time he logged in. Noé later switched bank for better financial services benefits, and for weighing in the poor authentication experience he had had. That poor experience contributed in part to his decision to switch.

Security professionals should also consider what is the risk for client retention? The usability and the consumer feelings towards accessing applications cannot be ignored, because it can really have a business impact. Consumer Digital Identity Management can deliver a business differentiation when efficiently implemented.

Managing the extra consumer risk

User driven adaptive security

A delegate shared the idea to consider a user driven adaptive security model to better manage the extra risk incurred when providing users with security choices. The model would operate in a way that would explicitly show the user the trade-off of security with the scope of transactions authorised. The model would let users make their own choices based on the trade-off. Through that model, users can directly manage themselves the setting of usability vs security.

For example:

• Strong security & lesser usability: login with strong password and a second factor of authentication: can transact directly up to $20,000
• Weak security & better usability: login with a weak password only: can only transact up to $500

The discussion on the suggested model also included considerations for forced step-up authentications and leveraging user behaviour analytics as compensating security controls to other weaker controls (e.g. weak password).

Consumer security awareness

A common consideration came up from all the Think-Tank sessions we held. It was about the consumer security awareness and its importance when giving consumers further security choices. Are consumers well-equipped to make the best of their security choices in web-banking applications?

A delegate made an analogy with the driving license, which certifies a minimum capability to drive for the safety of the driver and the safety of everybody else on the road. Similarly, a concept of cyber license or “web-banking license” could apply. The following question came-up: “What is a financial services provider’s responsibility in raising cyber awareness to their customers?”. Would a bank enforce a minimum level of security awareness? Should they promote the subject actively? Would they offer some online training to their customers?

An idea of reward then came-up. The idea was about rewarding customers who voluntarily opted to undertake some awareness training and possibly an evaluation check at the end. The reward could include being allowed choices for security, receiving a loyalty program award voucher or a product discount.

User Behaviour Analytics

User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) was discussed at several Think-Tank sessions, as an additional security control and as a compensating security control to offer users flexibility and security choices. For example, a banking mobile application could rely on a short PIN or on fingerprint authentication and trigger an authentication step-up when deviating from a typical usage behaviour.

A delegate also shared a personal experience to receive a mobile banking app notification on his mobile phone while at an international airport in Australia. The mobile app detected the consumer was located at an international airport and automatically notified him with a message along the lines of: “Heading overseas? Would you like to enable the overseas travel feature?”. The feature enabled some security constraints. The delegate reported a very positive user experience with the function. It seemed like he had felt being looked after through it.

Privacy considerations were also discussed when collecting and processing user behavioural data.

Device Management

Devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops are an important part of consumers’ digital identities. Consumers may perform regular web-banking operations from multiple devices, and they may use a new device occasionally. A delegate reported his experience with a South African bank, which also sells “smart devices” to their clients (as a reseller), and would have implemented a comprehensive device linking management and verification solution, which limits the access to banking services from “unverified” or irregular devices and which importantly provides a very good visibility of all transactions to their consumers who can promptly identify and report fraudulent transactions.

It is critical to efficiently manage consumer devices to improve security and offer a better usability.

Delivering secure and good user experience altogether

Financial services providers have embraced Customer eXperience (CX, or User eXperience – UX) as a focus for digital transformation, a business differentiation and a critical element to their customer engagement, satisfaction and retention.

In Australia, reports of financial organisations that are leading consumer app security discussions, innovation and design activities through a CX/UX leadership, instead of a security team leadership, are increasing. Heads of CX are also now reported to engage directly with some security vendors to discuss first-hand the options of experience through security.

A speaker, CISO, commented in his FST presentation that “The role of security is to provide the business with a self-service and agile security, and to monitor it.”. In the context of Consumer Digital Identity Management, the role of the security team is becoming more of an internal support and guidance to the CX and business teams who are leading the functional security discussions.

A delegate from a large bank shared with one Think-Tank group the close collaboration that has developed between the CX and the Security teams. The collaboration has been a key to enable the convergence of usability and security for the bank’s consumers.

Noé shares further thoughts on the subject in a recent article: The feeling of digital identity management.

Speakers, FST Security, Consumer Digital Identity Management

	Guillaume Noé General Manager, Pirean Australia & New Zealand Gui is a Cyber Security Advisor with a passion for Identity and Access Management, Customer eXperience, Security, Privacy and Technology in both business and personal contexts. He is the General Manager for Pirean in Australia & New-Zealand. He leads Pirean’s business development in the region with a focus on securely connecting people and technology while providing great user experiences. Gui’s experience in IAM & Security also includes: IAM core product development (IBM R&D Labs), Security & IAM solutions delivery (IBM Services & Queensland Treasury Corporation), Cyber Security & IAM Strategic Advisory (Deloitte Director) and General Manager for Telstra’ Security Consulting Practice. He is also a keen presenter and blogger on Security at guinoe.com.
	Chris Rathborne Chief Digital Information Officer, Insurance House Group Chris began in the financial services industry before moving in to eBusiness and have been covering the digital space for some time now. It all started with the Vic 20 and Commodore 64 where he learned to program and developed a love for technology. He has worked through the ranks of a couple of the major insurance businesses while the first websites began to emerge and develop online insurance commerce propositions. He managed to surround himself with some of the most interesting and innovative thinkers from all over the world and some of the best educational facilities, he became a natural innovator. One of his biggest educational achievements was completing a Doctorate of Information Systems and his paper delivered on the impact of Social Media on modern consumer choice. An opportunity arrived when he got the chance to build a new digital team at RACV including strategy development and execution and a major $18m project to develop RACV’s Membership Online portal from the preparation of the business case, vendor selection and project management. He selected a first-class digital team to work with who were together for 7 years. While running this major project to give 2 million members access to online products, he has also developed many mobile strategies, applications and websites using many digital technologies and new innovative ways to deliver content across multiple platforms. Since May 2016, Chris joined Insurance House Group, one of Australia’s largest privately owned insurance brokers.  He is now overseeing not only the group’s technology operations, but also the marketing and the analytics teams.  Working with the new group, Insurance House is pushing forward on DevOps and Agile in an environment that is bringing together a number of key parts of the business under the Technology hat to deliver on services to the business and customers.
	Phillimon Zongo Senior Cyber Security Consultant & Published Author Phillimon Zongo is a Senior Cyber Security consultant. He is the winner of the ISACA Sydney’s first ever Industry Best Governance Professional 2016, a recognition for the thought leadership he is contributing to the technology risk and cyber security profession. Phillimon’s thought leadership on cloud computing, artificial intelligence and robotics have been published in the ISACA International Journal, distributed to more than 180 countries. He has more than 12 years of technology risk consulting experience, advising senior business and technology stakeholders on how to manage critical risk in complex technology transformation programs.

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In terms of offerings to the market, Salesforce has been a major disruptor from their humble beginnings to being a major force in CRM tools.  Rightly so as well because they are very easy to use, the products are easy to work with and with their cloud capabilities the offering of speed when using products like SalesforceIQ are simply astounding.  There are of course many facets to Salesforce’s products beyond just CRM and their marketing cloud platform can get a business up and running with a new marketing platform (including web pages, online forms, surveys and analytics) in a matter of weeks. You can hire Brisbane web designer from here!

While not a full content management system for your website, it certainly is not too far from being the full set of tools needed for digital and they are ready to be able to do this in a very big way.  In short, with this purchase, Salesforce is set to become the dominating player in this space if they are able to integrate more of the CRM and Marketing platforms with the eCommerce platforms of Demandware.  With Salesforce’s applications in the cloud, clients can get access to a range of tools and applications such as data management, reporting, marketing and CRM all of which can be either used out of the box, or developed on take on further functions particular to a business and linking these applications to thier marketplace brings an astonishing range of further possibilities.

Demandware on the other hand offers an eCommerce platform that has inbuilt capabilities for web, mobile and point of sale solutions with online shopping carts built in to boot.  They are highly customisable (and easy to manage) and provide the full suite of online commerce platforms.  On a further note, the client list of those that are using the Demandware platform exceeds more than 300 brand-name businesses which is sure to be enviable with brands like Addidas, L’Oreal and Marks & Spencer to name just a few.

Both companies have the Silicon Valley DNA built in to their teams, so there is likely a good cultural fit between the two organisations.  There is the challenge of matching the pricing models, where Demandware takes a cut on products and services sold through its applications and this would likely need some re-engineering to be packaged and offered with the other products, or at least some massaging.

Joined together, Saleforce has truly arrived and is set to become the dominating player in this space and is positioned to knock IBM off the top with their agility and flexibility.  Major Australian online retailers such as Myer are already using the Salesforce CRM and Marketing platforms, and this new combination brings Salesforce in a position to offer eCommerce as well to their existing customers with a viable end-to-end platform to deliver personalised customer experiences.  These types of experiences can be tailored by business folk and the business analysts in product and marketing teams rather than needing solid developers at every turn to get things done.

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