Ten years of data show boards are strong on governance, but weaker on strategic change

Boards need to turn their attention to customers. That is one finding of evaluations by IMS Talent of around one hundred company boards over a decade.

In the past decade, boards of Finnish company have upped their game. Meeting practices, committee work and board chairs’ professionalism stand up to international comparison. However, boards repeatedly face the same core problem: boards are strong at governance, but weaker at accelerating strategic change.

That is one finding of board evaluation data for the years 2015–2025 for around one hundred companies compiled by IMS Talent. Even though boards repeatedly score highly on effectiveness, their scores on strategic impact are markedly lower.

In many companies, the direction is clear in principle. However, boards need evidence of how high-level policies translate into coherent decisions and measurable results. The data repeatedly shows that concrete methods, investment logic and implementation prioritization are often not made clear enough.

Boards also often doubt whether their organization has the ability to move in the chosen direction fast enough.

Customers and market – areas for improvement

Another persistent weakness seen the data as a whole is a lack of insight into clients and the market.

Boards receive excellent information on their companies’ internal performance, finances and risks. By contrast, information on customer behaviour, the value of customer segments, market changes and competitors’ true strengths receives far less attention.

This is a barrier to strategic impact. If board discussions are primarily based on a view from the inside, it is difficult to assess the company’s true position.

In the more recent evaluations, from 2020–2025, this challenge is more pronounced than before. In a rapidly changing environment, boards are expected to respond robustly to market signals and to visualize alternative scenarios. Today, boards do not manage to do this often enough.

Routines consume vital time

Mikael Silvennoinen, Chair of the Board of IMS Talent, knows where shortcomings in strategy and market insight often come from. There is simply not enough time if the right issues are not on the agenda.

“If you ask board members, they usually say: fewer routines and more strategy. Ultimately, it’s the board chair and the CEO who decide the outcome. They have to be disciplined enough to keep the board from spending too much time on ordinary financial reporting,” Silvennoinen says.

To help boards track how strategy is turned into action, Silvennoinen offers a practical tool that brings execution into every meeting.

“The chair should agree with the CEO that the first part of the CEO’s review will always be about how the decisions of the last board meeting were implemented.”

Another tool is an annual calendar. If the board wants time for market data, envisioning the future, and customer insight, it has to schedule them. It is worth assigning themes to meetings in advance.

Strong foundation creates space for transformation

Even though boards need to improve their strategic implementation and customer insight, the data shows that boards have also made significant progress.

In the 2015–2020 period, boards focused on improving structures, role and processes. Now, in the mid-2020s, that work is bearing fruit. The strength of boards often lies in their chairs. Chairs create a safe environment for discussion where difficult issues and risks can be discussed openly with the CEO. In the companies covered in the data, dynamics, psychological safety and committee work are excellent.

The core question for Finnish boards is no longer how a board should function. The routines are working. The issue now is how efficient, skilled boards can generate the greatest possible strategic value for companies competing for customers amidst increasingly intense market disruption.

FACTS: Board evaluations 2015–2025

• Data: Board evaluations conducted by IMS Talent at around one hundred Finnish organizations over ten years.
• Development path: Boards have moved from improving basic structures and roles (2015–2020) to a phase of strategic maturity and transformation (2020–2025).
• Strengths: Board work processes, committee work, board dynamics and the professionalism of the chair.
• Weaknesses: Concrete strategic implementation, insufficient customer and market insight, using digitalization and AI, and CEO and management team succession planning.
• Skills needed now: Instead of general wish lists, boards are now looking for specialized skills in areas like AI, value creation, new partnership models and specific customer segments.