By Suleyman A. Ndanusa PhD OON
For more than half a century, corporate governance has focused on a familiar cast of characters. Boards oversee management. Audit committees protect financial integrity. Risk committees anticipate uncertainty. Nomination committees shape leadership. Remuneration committees align incentives. Regulators strengthen accountability, while shareholders demand transparency and long term value.
These are the pillars upon which modern corporations have been built.
Yet beneath them lies a surprisingly neglected question.
Who governs the business model?
At first glance, the question appears almost unnecessary. Surely the Chief Executive Officer owns it. Perhaps the strategy department. Maybe the board. Or perhaps everyone.
The fact that no immediate answer presents itself is precisely why the question deserves attention.
A business model is not merely another management document gathering digital dust in a board portal. It is the living architecture through which an organization creates value, delivers value and captures value. It explains why customers choose one organization over another, how revenues are generated, why investors commit capital and why employees devote their talents to a common purpose.
In many respects, the business model is the organization’s economic constitution.
Curiously, while boards devote considerable attention to strategy, finance, risk and compliance, relatively little attention is paid to governing the very architecture that connects them all.
That omission mattered less in the industrial economy.
It matters enormously in the ecosystem economy.
There was a time when companies largely operated within their own organizational boundaries. Manufacturers manufactured. Banks provided banking services. Universities educated students. Energy companies produced energy. Competitive advantage depended largely upon assets owned, factories operated and people employed.
That world has quietly changed.
Today’s organizations increasingly create value through networks rather than hierarchies, partnerships rather than ownership and platforms rather than pipelines.
A modern bank is no longer simply a bank. It is an ecosystem connecting payment providers, fintech innovators, telecommunications companies, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity specialists, identity verification systems, regulators, merchants and millions of customers interacting every second.
An automobile manufacturer no longer merely assembles vehicles. It coordinates software developers, battery manufacturers, charging networks, mapping technologies, artificial intelligence, insurers and mobility platforms.
Even agriculture has become an ecosystem in which farmers, climate scientists, satellite technology, logistics providers, financial institutions, fertilizer producers and commodity exchanges jointly create value that no single participant could generate alone.
The modern corporation increasingly resembles an orchestra.
Its greatest competitive advantage often lies not in playing every instrument but in ensuring that every instrument plays in harmony.
That observation may hold the key to the next evolution of corporate governance.
For decades, governance has concentrated on supervising organizations.
Perhaps it is now time to supervise the systems through which organizations create value.
The distinction is subtle but profound.
Strategy determines where an organization intends to compete.
The business model determines how it survives once it gets there.
A brilliant strategy implemented through an obsolete business model is rather like fitting a Formula One engine into a horse cart. The ambition may be admirable. The journey, however, is unlikely to end well.
History repeatedly reminds us that organizations rarely fail because they suddenly forget how to execute. More often, they continue executing with remarkable discipline while the world quietly changes around them.Customers evolve.
Technology advances.
Regulations shift.
Competitors redefine industries.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s business model continues reporting for work every Monday morning, blissfully unaware that retirement should probably have arrived on Friday.
Perhaps the greatest strategic risk facing organizations today is not poor execution.
It is excellent execution of an outdated business model.
This is where governance enters a new conversation.
Directors understandably spend significant time reviewing financial statements, enterprise risks, sustainability reports, cyber resilience and regulatory compliance. These responsibilities remain indispensable.
Yet financial statements describe yesterday.
Business model governance protects tomorrow.
The question every board should occasionally ask is therefore not simply whether management is delivering results.
It is whether the organization is still creating value through the right architecture.
If the company were being founded today, knowing everything that is now known about technology, markets, regulation and customer expectations, would its directors design the same business model?
That single question may reveal more about the organization’s future than another hundred pages of historical performance reports.
The rise of ecosystems makes the question even more urgent.
Increasingly, organizations depend upon assets they do not own, data they do not exclusively control, partnerships they cannot entirely direct and technologies that evolve faster than traditional governance frameworks.
The legal boundaries of the corporation remain unchanged.
The practical boundaries of its business model have expanded dramatically.
Corporate governance has not failed.
Far from it.
Modern governance has become more rigorous, more transparent and more accountable than at any other time in history.
The challenge is that governance has evolved alongside the corporation, while value creation has evolved beyond it.
The economy has changed.
Governance must now catch up.
Perhaps the next frontier of governance is not another reporting requirement, another committee or another compliance framework.
Perhaps it is something far simpler.
Recognising that the business model itself deserves explicit governance.
Not because governance has been inadequate.
But because value creation has become more complex.
As organizations increasingly compete as ecosystems rather than isolated enterprises, boards may discover that their most important responsibility is no longer simply governing the corporation.
It is governing the logic through which the corporation creates value.
Corporate governance has travelled an extraordinary journey over the past fifty years.
Its next destination may well be Business Model Governance.
Whether this becomes a new discipline or simply the natural evolution of corporate governance remains to be seen.
Either way, it is a conversation whose time appears to have arrived.
Suleyman A. Ndanusa, PhD, OON, is an economist, lawyer, strategic studies scholar, and public policy thinker and practitioner with extensive experience in financial markets, regulation, governance, national Security and development.
