WATCH · Tech Leadership & Boards_
The Gap Between Your IT Provider and Your Board Is Where Crises Live
Saleem Beg · Founder, Teque
● 2:01 · Posted 3 months ago
KEY TAKEAWAYS_
- Strategic technology oversight sits between IT provider and board — and has no owner in most SMEs
- The gap isn't deliberate — nobody ever named it as a function that needed filling
- Write down who watches for technology risk before it becomes a crisis. If you can't write a name, that's the gap.
TRANSCRIPT_
The technology failure that threatens your business won't come with a warning. It will arrive on a Tuesday afternoon when three things go wrong at once and the one person who could fix it isn't there. 17% of significant technology projects fail badly enough to threaten the survival of the business.
60% of UK businesses experienced a financially damaging cyber attack last year. These aren't stories about negligent companies. They're stories about normal companies with the same IT arrangements, the same supplier relationships, the same level of board visibility as most businesses their size. The difference between the ones that got through it and the ones that didn't wasn't
carelessness. It was whether anyone was watching. Why isn't anyone watching? Well, because a strategic technology oversight, the kind that sits above the IT provider and below the board, is nobody's job in most. The IT provider watches the infrastructure. The board watches the finances. The gap in the middle where the strategic risks live has no owner.
Not because anyone decided to leave it unowned, but because nobody ever named it as a function that needed filling. So, here's the most important thing you can do this week. Write down who in your organization is responsible for identifying a technology risk before it becomes a technology crisis. Not who responds to it, but who watches for it.
If you can't write a name, then that's the gap. And it's a gap you can fill without a large investment, but only if you decide to fill it before Tuesday arrives.
“The difference between the ones that got through it and the ones that didn't wasn't carelessness. It was whether anyone was watching.”
Prefer to read? This take is also a written article.
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