BDO's November 2020 survey of 230 public company directors revealed these and other top takeaways.
- Corporate strategies: The most commonly cited corporate strategies for 2021 are: (i) seeking or expanding an acquisition strategy (48%), (ii) transitioning to a long-term remote work environment for at least some employees (40%), and (iii) introducing new or altering current revenue streams (39%).
- New administration: Respondents identified anticipated US tax changes (33%) and regulatory oversight changes (21%) as top post-election concerns.
- ESG reporting: A quarter of directors cited enhancing sustainability reporting as one of their top three ESG priorities in the next 12-18 months; nearly 30% identified this as a long-term (18-36 months) priority.
- Human capital: Board/management team diversity and workforce DE&I efforts are identified as top long-term and short-term priorities, respectively. Outside of DE&I, human capital priorities include reimagining flexibility and remote work strategies (30%), up-skilling the workforce (22%), and rightsizing staffing levels (17%). Respondents identified these as the top DE&I efforts in their corporate strategies in 2021:
- Proxy Season: 60% of respondents say resilience of liquidity, revenue streams, and operations will be their shareholders’ greatest concern in the 2021 proxy season, and 21% cite restoring or retaining shareholder confidence as their top governance oversight challenge in the next six months.
Access numerous additional benchmarking resources on our Board/Governance Practices and Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources pages.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!