The question isn’t whether boards should get serious about digital. The real question is: how much longer can they afford not to?
The digital revolution is no longer news—it’s history.
Its foundations were laid in the mid-20th century with mainframe computers, when machines began to outperform humans in processing capability.
The 1990s brought a leap with the birth of the internet browser (Mosaic), which—together with HTML—opened the door to universal information sharing.
Then came a defining moment in 2007: Apple’s release of the iPhone. Smartphones didn’t just change the way people communicated; it forever altered consumer behaviour, business models, and global markets.
Yet today, we are no longer in a revolution. We have entered an era of digital evolution—where change is constant, multifaceted, and compounding.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is transforming the workforce, and humanoid service robotics are no longer science fiction.
Meanwhile organisations face rising vulnerability to cyberattacks and society grapples with an ever-blurring line between what is real and what is artificially generated.
This new phase isn’t about the adoption of digital—it’s about the reinvention of organisations around it. And that responsibility rests firmly with boards.
Digital reinvention: a boardroom imperative
Digital is no longer a back-office enabler. It is core to strategy, resilience, and competitiveness. Yet too many boards approach digital transformation passively, leaving organisations exposed and underprepared.
- Lack of expertise: Few boards have directors with professional digital backgrounds—not just literacy—but lived expertise in digital transformation (here, and here).
- Strategic blind spots: Without governance of digital investments, boards risk presiding over organisations that stagnate while competitors accelerate.
- Missed opportunities: Digital stasis limits innovation, constrains agility, and undermines employee and customer engagement.
This isn’t optional. The stakes are too high:
- In commercial organisations: you are either actively disrupting—or in line to be disrupted.
- In government and not-for-profits: digital reinvention is no longer about efficiency; it is fundamental to meeting rising demands with limited resources.
- In every organisation: digital maturity underpins cybersecurity readiness, talent retention, and long-term survival.
Boards that fail to evolve and embrace digital are, ultimately, failing in their duty of organisational stewardship.
So what can boards do?
Getting serious about digital doesn’t mean every director becomes a technologist. It’s about boards embracing a clear, structured agenda to govern and lead in a digital-first era.
1. Develop digital literacy: Directors must achieve a working understanding of key technologies—AI, cloud computing, data analytics, and cybersecurity. The goal is not technical fluency, but strategic relevance.
2. Recruit digital expertise: Update the skills matrix. Ensure the board includes at least one director with a professional background in digital transformation. This is not about ticking a “digital literacy” box, but embedding strategic expertise.
3. Engage in digital strategy: Boards cannot delegate digital strategy to management and hope for the best. They must shape, resource, and monitor it like any other critical strategy—focusing on outcomes, benefits, and lessons learned.
4. Oversee cybersecurity: Treat cybersecurity as a separate but interdependent strategy alongside the organisation’s digital plan. Modern boards must move beyond compliance-driven oversight and into a proactive, risk-focused posture.
5. Embrace data as an asset: Boards should ensure that robust data governance, architecture, and analytics are in place. Data is today’s strategic resource—its stewardship too important to leave unmanaged.
6. Foster a digital culture of innovation: A digital-first culture requires boards to champion experimentation, risk-tolerance, and learning. Innovation won’t thrive if the boardroom itself isn’t signalling its value.
The new mandate for boards
Digital transformation is no longer a project with a beginning and an end. It is a state of continuous evolution that demands sharper attention, deeper insight, and stronger governance at board level.
Boards that embrace this responsibility will help their organisations navigate complexity, harness new opportunities, and ensure long-term relevance. Those that don’t will quickly find themselves falling short on stakeholder expectations – disrupted, side-lined, or left behind.
The question isn’t whether boards should get serious about digital. The real question is: how much longer can they afford not to?
In upcoming articles in this series, I address the important topics of digital strategy, cybersecurity and building a digital culture.
Dr Malcolm Thatcher is a digital executive, author and advisor. He is the former chief technology officer of the Australian Digital Health Agency. He is the founder of the Strategance Group.
This article was first published on Dr Thatcher’s LinkedIn profile. Read the original here.