In almost half of the large German companies, there is a lack of digital expertise on the supervisory board.
This is the result of an as yet unpublished study by the consulting firm Heads International with the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, the results of which are available to the FAS.
According to this, 51 percent of the companies examined have at least one supervisory board member with proven expertise in digital topics.
In a previous study in 2018, it was only 19 percent.
Digital knowledge is particularly few and far between in the supervisory bodies of family businesses.
Alexander Wulfers
Editor in the business department.
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You will often look in vain for “digital natives” among supervisory boards: the average age of digital experts is 57 years.
Above all, the authors consider it problematic that hardly any of the experts come from outside Europe.
Because of the technological lead that American and Asian companies often have, there is still a lot of potential here to exploit external know-how.
Adrian Fischer, Managing Partner of Heads International, believes that "the speed of change" must be "significantly faster" in this competition.
Professor Thomas Hess, co-author of the study, views the results with mixed feelings.
The shortage is particularly clear in medium-sized businesses: “The glass is half full - but also half empty.
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