Technology Competence in the Executive Team: Why Efficiency Often Fails Without It
36% of Swiss board members name efficiency gains and the optimisation of internal processes as the biggest opportunity for their company (swissVR Monitor I/2026). That sounds like clarity. In practice, a gap often shows up:
- Who on the executive team can explain how the efficiency target will actually be reached, technologically?
International benchmarks show why this matters. Gartner has repeatedly reported that, on average, only around 48% of digital initiatives meet their business outcome targets. McKinsey has described for years how a large share of transformations fall short of expectations.
The bottleneck is often not primarily the technology. It is missing accountability, unclear prioritisation, and outcome KPIs that are not tracked consistently enough at executive level.
Recurring patterns
Many efficiency programmes start as classic process projects, even though the real levers usually sit in data, systems, and automation. Typical friction follows:
- Local optimisation instead of end-to-end process thinking: one department gets faster, another picks up extra work, because dependencies along the process chain were underestimated.
- Unclear guardrails: IT receives mandates but, without strategic framing and outcome targets, struggles to prioritise.
- Project progress instead of impact: reports are dominated by milestones (“on track”), while the impact on cost, time, and quality is not measured transparently throughout.
Three lessons from leadership and board work
Technology is not a tool question, it is an architecture decision
Efficiency rarely comes from buying new software. It comes from designing data flows, system boundaries, and processes so that improvements are measurable and scalable across the entire process chain.
- Decisive question: Which data is captured, processed, and controlled today, and where, and where do media breaks or manual interfaces still occur?
Efficiency is created in the executive team
Digital transformation or AI integration cannot simply be delegated to IT. The executive team must own goals, priorities, responsibilities, and success criteria. IT delivers the implementation.
The probability of success rises markedly when companies consistently apply proven transformation practices, in particular clear leadership, governance, and targeted capability building.
- Decisive question: Who on the executive team holds end-to-end accountability for impact and steering, not just for a single project?
The board does not need to build IT competence, but it must demand it
The board does not need to master the details of cloud, digitalisation, or AI. But it should be able to consistently answer at least three governance questions:
- Who on the executive team is accountable for the technological delivery of the strategy?
- What competence and decision-making authority does that person actually have?
- How is success measured, in outcomes rather than project milestones?
Why organisational structure alone is not enough
All of this only works if the executive team builds the right structures and, at the same time, brings the organisation along deliberately.
Efficiency programmes rarely fail because of “the strategy” or “the tools”. More often, they fail because of
- missing communication,
- unclear responsibilities,
- and a pace of change that erodes trust.
In my experience, the biggest challenge was rarely the system. It was, more often, the trust employees placed in the process and in leadership.
What the Swiss numbers suggest
The numbers become interesting once read together: efficiency as the top opportunity (36%), alongside the finding that interaction between many boards and their executive teams is increasing, and that the line between strategic and operational work is not always sharp.
That is not inherently bad. But it shows that once boards and executive teams become more operational, responsibilities, decision rights, and metrics need to be defined all the more clearly.
Three concrete steps for boards
Drawing on my experience as CEO, COO, and board member, at times in dual roles, I see the following measures as useful:
- “Explain the path” at the next strategy session: who can walk the board through how the efficiency target will be delivered technologically, across the whole process chain? If no one can, a key competence is missing at executive level.
- Anchor technology competence visibly in the executive team: the organisation needs a role that translates technology investment into value contribution, risk, and priorities, and is held accountable for it.
- Steer impact with defined KPIs, do not just manage status: what matters is measurability, not the status “on track”, for example: cost per process, cycle time, error rate, rework rate, service level. Expected returns from transformation are often not achieved even though projects formally progress. A common reason: outcome KPIs are not tracked consistently, transparently, or in a way that actually drives decisions during delivery.
Closing thought
Efficiency is a central opportunity. But it only becomes achievable once strategy, technology, and delivery are connected at executive level, and once the board actively demands and verifies that connection.
A question for board and executive members: who in your company today can credibly explain the bridge between business logic and technology, and is actually measured on it?