How to Balance Innovation and Control with IT Governance
No time to read? Snack on these:
- South African enterprises need IT governance frameworks that enable innovation while managing risk.
- Compliance in South Africa is evolving, with increasing pressure from regulators and international partners.
- Modern governance aligns IT with agility, security, and user experience — not bureaucracy.
- Shadow IT policies must balance security concerns with business creativity and speed.
- Developing in-house governance capabilities helps future-proof your digital strategy.
The release of a fifth edition of the King Report in 2025, King V, is set to simplify and streamline governance guidance for companies in South Africa. It will reduce the number of principles from 17 to 12, which will benefit companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as compliance to the report is mandatory. This is, however, not the only governance and compliance requirement faced by local companies. There’s the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) which has serious repercussions for non-compliant companies and then there’s third-party and AI risk management, cybersecurity, and regulatory changes and expectations.
And all of this adds up, says PwC to 77% of companies finding that compliance is negatively affecting their businesses, particularly in areas critical to growth. Which means that companies need balance governance models that frame it as an enabler of innovation, not as an obstacle, and that embed principles like transparency, accountability and agility into technology decisions from day one.
Understanding Regulatory Compliance Challenges in the South African Context
From POPIA to King IV (soon to be V), companies have to navigate a regulatory environment that combines local mandates with global pressures, especially in sectors like finance, energy and healthcare.
There are ways of navigating this – technology has paid attention to what companies need and there are ways of integrating solutions into your stack that allow you to better manage compliance and its expectations.
- Microsoft Purview, for managing data lifecycle, privacy obligations, and audit readiness
- Microsoft Compliance Manager, to map controls across regulations and simplify documentation
- Power BI-based compliance dashboards, offering at-a-glance reporting for boards and auditors
A forward-thinking digital innovation framework helps you to adopt emerging tools like AI or low-code platforms, without losing visibility or control.
What Governance Structures Support Digital Innovation?
Often, governance is applied after innovation has already happened. Retrospective policy enforcement or reactive controls are put in place after the proverbial horse has left the barn, which is risky and often ineffective, especially in the fast-moving world of AI tools, cloud platforms and low-code development.
The goal is to design governance for innovation. This means building an environment shaped by policy. Mint works with clients to implement structured deployment frameworks such as Azure Landing Zones and Blueprints which enforce consistent security and compliance across cloud environments from the outset. In low-code environments, such as Microsoft’s Power Platform, governance can be applied through role-based access, data loss prevention policies and usage monitoring which ensure your users can create solutions without exposing the business to unnecessary risk.
Governance as a Strategic Enabler
IT governance is a living, evolving framework that supports innovation, secures operations and builds trust. Companies need a governance model capable of scaling with them, adapting with them and growing with them and this can be found in the right balance of tools, policy and internal capability.
Governance is not a barrier to progress and with Mint’s support, it will become a secure, scalable foundation that supports innovation and provides you with peace of mind (and compliance).
