Corporate Governance: Agility & Digitalisation as Resilience Drivers

As a board member, preparation and foresight are part of your routine. In fact, beyond bylaws and legal obligations, you are in charge of shaping the future by providing a vision for your company. Nevertheless, performance and innovation likely occupy most of your attention. As a result, the key changes and transformations of boards as corporate governance structures can often be neglected.

Considering the upcoming and unknown challenges you are likely to face in the coming months, risk-taking will have a peculiar resonance. That is why we must highlight and compare changes occurring in the business world with the ones operating in the broader society. A poignant yet noticeable theme is the disproportionate pace of evolution between the two. Indeed, our personal behaviours, devices, habits and expectations are evolving faster. Thus, an equilibrium must be found to balance traditional corporate considerations with innovative technologies and disruptive events.

While disruptive behaviours can be perceived as a risk and status quo often represents prosperity, board members are more than ever inclined to change. Indeed, formalism is deeply rooted throughout several repetitive actions and therefore creates room for automation to reduce risks and hazards. Digitalisation is often presented as a destructive process, however, in most cases it comes either to optimise or complement current tools and processes.

Agility and resilience are key words for board members  because they emphasise both the ins and outs of corporate governance, and provide pertinent solutions to current and upcoming challenges. As an example, the four fundamental values of the Agile Manifesto are a relevant inspiration for boards:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Digitalisation is not an objective in itself. Nevertheless, misalignment with the digital economy has started to become a significant threat. Innovation is shaping our societies and already made its way up to your organisation. It would therefore be an inconsiderate counter-current position not to exploit this asset. Through this ongoing transition, a new reality will eventually emerge:  a more consensual and intuitive understanding of the economy as a whole.

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