MIT Sloan Management Review Article on It Pays to Have a Digitally Savvy Board

Having board members with experience in digital business is the new financial performance differentiator.

Boards of directors have many issues competing for their attention, but being digitally conversant in an era of digital transformation is quickly rising to the top of the list. Nearly all companies are looking for ways that technology can be used to improve their business models, customer experience, operational efficiency, and more — and boards must help them move forward at a sufficient pace, advocating for change by supporting and sometimes nudging their CEOs. Those that do are likely to see better financial results than those that don’t.

That’s what we discovered when we did a machine learning analysis of the digital know-how of all the boards of U.S. listed businesses.

About the Author

Peter Weill is an MIT senior research scientist and chair of the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Thomas Apel is chairman of the board at Stewart Information Services Corp. Stephanie L. Woerner (@sl_woerner) is a research scientist at CISR and the coauthor, with Weill, of What’s Your Digital Business Model? Six Questions to Help You Build the Next-Generation Enterprise (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018). Jennifer S. Banner is CEO at Schaad Cos. and lead director of BB&T Corp.

Learn more about MIT SMR.