Apart from security, what IT topics really grab the board's attention?
Former Chief Technology and People Officer in Software, 1,001 - 5,000 employees
The few boards that I'm on are realizing that technology business continuity, and that not every outage or technology risk is a security risk. We all have actually seen it happen recently: where somebody hits the wrong button and now AWS or SFDC has a problem, things are down.I have noticed that whether they're prepared to have the conversations or not, this enterprise risk list is beyond just cyber. Now the concern is, "If my business is about delivering services and those services are down, what does that mean, from an enterprise risk perspective?" Along with these systems that can scale, etc. If you've got the right board make-up, there are more threads being pulled around some of these other risks because until now there hasn't been a clear understanding that things don't just magically work all the time.
VP, Information Technology in Consumer Goods, 10,001+ employees
Digital disruption is always a fun talking pointCIO, 5,001 - 10,000 employees
At my company, the technology conversation is the focus at the board level. There's a transformation conversation but it's about business model transformation and they view IT as something operational as long as no one's telling them, "I'm not getting it done, because Sharon's not delivering the IT stuff." We've got a lot of technologists, including a board member from Salesforce who ran platforms. We have a lot of people who understand IT's importance there and I don't think they're spending a lot of time on that. They assume it's getting done through talking, but they’re scared shitless over security, especially because security is part of our brand. It's mostly the audit committee that is concerned with IT's digital transformation initiatives and the audit committee are mostly finance people. We have a CIO in the audit committee, from the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) who asks all the hard questions and that is the conversation they want to have with me.
Director of IT in Software, 201 - 500 employees
Digital transformation, hybrid cloud, collaboration and remote workContent you might like
Proactively driving change to shape a new culture31%
Embracing and maintaining the current culture63%
Considering changes but haven't taken action yet5%
Other1%
86 PARTICIPANTS
Head of Information Security in Services (non-Government), 1,001 - 5,000 employees
You need to tell people what to expect and what not to expect from IT. We’ve tried to train people to expect that IT will do certain things or make requests which are okay to comply with, but IT will never call you out of ...read moreCTO in Software, 201 - 500 employees
Without a doubt - Technical Debt! It's a ball and chain that creates an ever increasing drag on any organization, stifles innovation, and prevents transformation.Increased55%
Decreased25%
No change20%
248 PARTICIPANTS
For World 50, it's the digitization of their business: how do they translate their experiences, which have been thrust into an online-only universe in the last 12 months, and how do they continue to drive that forward in a hybrid universe? So I don't see a common theme, but everybody's investing in technology in some form. Very few companies that I'm working with don't care about it.