2019 Directors’ Alert

Long-term value creation
Understanding the fourth industrial revolution

The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is being driven by digital and cognitive technologies, and combinations of those technologies with physical processes and objects. Although business leaders need to distinguish between the hype and the real opportunities surrounding these technologies, it is as big a mistake to dismiss them as it is to mindlessly embrace them. Organizations are presented with these challenges as competitors seek to change not only the playing field, but the game itself. Both boards and management teams have work to do to ready their organizations for Industry 4.0.

To read more, visit our Global Center for Corporate Governance to download the 2019 Directors’ Alert

Investor engagement and activist shareholder strategies
What the board needs to know and do for the long term

Shareholders and activists have asserted themselves more in recent years. For better or worse, activists are more numerous and more diverse than they were in the past, both in their agendas and their methods. This reinforces the need for management, with the board’s oversight and guidance, to engage with shareholders proactively, to be prepared for friendly or confrontational activists, and to have a long-term plan for shareholder engagement.

To read more, visit our Global Center for Corporate Governance to download the 2019 Directors’ Alert

The board and ESG
Going long on the future of the enterprise

Discussions of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters have intensified in recent years. As overseers of risk and stewards of long-term enterprise value, board members have a vital oversight role in the organization’s environmental, social, and governance impacts. Leadership teams face ample opportunity to leverage ESG for the long-term good of the organization, its stakeholders, and society. With such high stakes, this is an area that organizations, and their boards, cannot afford to get wrong.

To read more, visit our Global Center for Corporate Governance to download the 2019 Directors’ Alert

Tax strategy for the long term
Is your organization getting it right?

Once considered just another part—and cost—of doing business, tax has become a high-priority agenda item for both the C-suite and the board. Tax strategy and its related technology, administrative, and risk management infrastructure must now be reviewed more frequently, in greater detail, and at higher levels of the organization than in the past. Considering the long-term impact that tax strategies and policies can have on an organization, proactive engagement by the board is clearly warranted.

To read more, visit our Global Center for Corporate Governance to download the 2019 Directors’ Alert