Advancing Boards – Global Board Survey 2017 results: How Boards advance – and companies with them
InterSearch – Worldwide Organization of Executive Search Firms and Board Network – The Danish Professional Directors Association have together performed this Global Board Survey 2017 in January and February 2017 among 1.017 corporate chairmen/women and board members from 52 countries on all populated continents. Respondents represent every imaginable industry, all sizes of companies up to turnovers of more than USD 20 Billion per year, and all kinds of ownership structures.
A strong majority of 68% has a very definite optimistic look on the future, anticipating the company’s financial outlook to improve for the coming 2 years compared to the past 2 years. 56% expect to perform better than the competition in the coming 2 years, and as many as 35% expect to develop equally with the competitors.
Two very remarkable Megatrends for the next three years take almost all the spotlight: Disruptive / exponential technologies in general, and Geopolitical instability and political dogma shifts. The only certain thing these days is uncertainty, and that puts a demand of much more broad-spectral holistic scenario planning and business modelling at board level.
For the great majority of respondents the most significant Board / Governance trends in the coming year are More focus on the future of the business / less on compliance/risk/control tasks, and Transformation focus and digital savviness.
Other trends drawing a lot of attention are More regulation and governmental control; Increased sustainability focus; and More time spent on stakeholder management.
Interesting also the Emerging trends such as More diversity focus, More board evaluations, and The rise of board mentoring as a valuable tool for individual board members.
Despite the fact that only 22% of our respondents being women and 78% being men, half of all respondents express with certainty that greater gender diversity is to some or a large extent value-adding to any board, and another 31% said that it could potentially be value-adding depending on the situation.
Based on this year’s Global Board Survey 2017 as well as our vast experience from working with some of the world’s most influential board members from some of the world’s largest companies, we have been able to identify ten characteristics that Advancing Boards have in common: They are courageous, lead, continuously prepare for the future, engage fully, rely on evidence (facts and data when making strategic decisions), they are all for diversity, act timely, exhibit integrity, undergo regular and formal board evaluations, and last but not least remember why they were originally appointed to the board: add value to the board, the company and the shareholders.
