How the Influence of Technology is Vital on Corporate Boards

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“If you didn’t have a digital strategy, you do now or you don’t survive,” said Guillermo Diaz Jr., chief executive officer at software firm Kloudspot, and a former chief information officer at Cisco Systems Inc. “You have to have a digital strategy and digital culture, and a board that thinks that way,” he said in an article for the Wall Street Journal.

Technology is not new for businesses. It’s been a standard for a minimum of two decades. But not everyone embraced it, understood it, or recognized it when it became a core element of running a business. The ‘excuse’ of not understanding technology became accepted. 2020 changed everything for every business. Some were more prepared and able to adapt than others. Either way, the pandemic changed this mindset.

Directors make strategic decisions on behalf of shareholders, set company goals, and assess top executives’ performance—including technology-related ones. If the board doesn’t understand technology, how can they make informed decisions? It’s simple, they can’t.

Like marketing expertise, technology expertise on the board is not high at all. According to a recent global survey by IT recruiting and outsourcing firm Harvey Nash Inc. and KPMG International Ltd, about a third of CIOs at large firms said they don’t sit on their company’s board. The survey fielded before and after the pandemic struck, included responses from more than 4,000 corporate technology leaders with a combined IT budget of over $200 billion. One in every 10 companies has no tech executives on the board at all, the report said.

Ok, all of that is great but what does it have to do with branding?

Over the last decade, technology and marketing have been merging, not into one, but to be very complementary departments of a company. In most companies, technology is the woven fabric throughout, both internally and externally—it’s a set of tools that deliver on the brand. Digital transformation, technology, and security are not just IT problems, they are a part of the larger strategic plan of the organization and marketing is how the company takes the complexity and makes it simple. Marketing understands and can get in the heads of customers. When you know how they think and how to communicate with them, you’ll get better results which will make shareholders happy.

Omicle delivers brand clarity, marketing strategy, and operational efficiency to prepare leaders to scale their business. If you are ready to scale your business, contact us today to get started.

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