Is your board willing to be a driving force in the digitization of the company, or are you content to sit back and watch as born-digital companies transform one industry after another? Boards must recognize the unstoppable forces at play and drive their CEOs to reinvent the business while they still have the resources to do so – and before they come under pressure from activists to whom the necessity of digitization is obvious.
Boards Can’t Wait for CEOs to Prioritize Digital Change
And in some cases the boards themselves will have to change.
September 06, 2017
Summary.
Boards need to take a proactive role in digitization of legacy businesses. If they don’t, activist investors and shareholders will. Starting with their own education of how digitization will affect the business, boards should make sure they have the right CEO and that the CEO has a bold vision for reimagining the business. They will have to be prepared to defend the CEO against backlash from the inside, outside, and investment community. And in some cases, boards may have to evaluate and refresh their composition – resisting the reality of digitization is a good reason to expedite a change.