After discussing various trends and strategies to survive and thrive within the cloud universe for the next decade, the second day keynote session of the virtual CLOUDSEC 2020 conference focused on the “Recipe For Digital Transformation Success”.

Leah MacMillan, Chief Marketing Officer, Trend Micro, opened the session by talking about the experiences of various industries and their digital transformation progresses. “In today's hyper-competitive connected world, organisations everywhere are leveraging new technologies to digitally transform and deliver new personalised services faster to their customers to revolutionise their supply chains and achieve operational efficiencies”, began Leah.

She mentioned some examples like in financial services where online and digital payments are becoming a norm between institutions and for individuals. There is also digital transformation happening in the retail sector, where people are no longer shopping in person and companies are utilising omnichannel and hyper-personalisation strategies for customer experience and revenues.

Additionally, manufacturing companies are now getting smarter with automation, robotics and AI, which improve efficiency and operations in the working environments. For the healthcare industry, digitally enabled tools for diagnosis, treatment and management can prevent adverse drug effects.

With all of this success in digital transformation however, there is always a risk, especially in light of what is happening in the world in terms of cybercrime today. Leah mentioned, “We found that 71% of organisations had at least one breach this year, at least that they knew about, and 17% had seven or more”.

According to Leah, organisations cited the top risks as loss of data, organisational misalignment or complexity and shortage of qualified personnel. With that, Leah introduced Eva Chen, Chief Executive Officer, Trend Micro, who shared insights about security and the transformational journey of the company.

Eva started by saying that Trend Micro has now existed for 33 years, which according to her, is almost like the journey for digital transformation. She cited that 30 years ago, personal computers came into existence, which started this digital transformation journey. About 20 years ago, the Internet was born and enabled connectivity throughout the whole world.

“Then around 10 years ago, cloud computing came into existence. I often talk about how, if PC is something like pen and paper, then cloud computing is like printing technology. It has accelerated how people can use the digital information system and share more knowledge. Now we can come to this hyper-connected world where almost everything is connected”, Eva added.

For Eva, Trend Micro is an organisation that is leading all this transformation. She added that everyone wants to be the leader in this digital transformation, but they also need to have the right strategy and execution success to triumph in this journey.

With that, Eva cited the key strategy for Trend Micro, which she described as “x = i + u – t”. This equation stands for the cybersecurity strategy (the x), where organisations need to take account the shifts in infrastructure (the i), changes in user behaviour (the u) and the recent state of cyber threats (the t).

“We need to decide what we need to do. What are the new cybersecurity problems we need to solve for our customers? That’s the x”, added Eva. In addition, Eva talked about the formula for successful execution, which is “y = q + a – n”.

She described q as being quick in taking the first steps, otherwise, companies will be left behind. The a stands for being accurate, as organisations need to adjust for accuracy as no one can set everything right at the first step. Lastly, the n, which are the negative outcomes that businesses need to take account and to look back when thinking of their digital transformation.

Eva said that while this process can be difficult, it is still achievable. For Trend Micro, they have attained this digital transformation by experiencing various challenges first and finding solutions to solve these. An example is the shift from software to SaaS, realising customer usage insights, immediate access to the latest security features and data-driven decisions for research and development.

Today’s digital transformation journey revolves around the cloud and Eva mentioned that the Trend Micro Cloud One platform can protect new and existing workloads against threats with emerging techniques such as machine learning and virtual patching.

Such digital transformation journey success can be reached by implementing the right cybersecurity strategy and success in its execution. Eva ended by saying “To embrace digital transformation, you need to wear your helmet, go to the workshop and work around it. You cannot just sit behind the desk giving instructions. A leader needs to be on the battlefield and take the first step of this change”.