“Either the salt has lost its saltiness, or the world refuses to be salted.” — Father António Vieira (1654)
Father António Vieira once preached to the fish because men refused to listen. Centuries later, many organizations still swim in circles, deaf to governance and dazzled by digital noise. Perhaps the question is not whether COBIT® has lost its saltiness, but whether organizations have refused to be salted.
The Taste of Salt
COBIT, like salt, was never meant to shine, it was meant to preserve, to give flavor and to sustain. Governance, in the same way, is invisible when it works and irreplaceable when it disappears. Without it, digital transformation becomes expensive improvisation.
So, has COBIT lost its edge, or are organizations the ones refusing to be “COBITized”? Frameworks do not fail; people and organizations fail to use them. COBIT has evolved from a checklist to a compass, from control to governance. Those who treat it as compliance seasoning, sprinkled after the meal, miss the entire recipe.
The Aquarium of Transformation
Inside every transformation program lives a full aquarium of characters. Some swim with purpose, others simply stir the water.
The Rémora is the silent influencer; it attaches to leadership and corrects the course with subtle strength. The Torpedo is the system-shaker; it brings the shock that wakes comfortable organizations. The Four-Eyes balances boldness with caution, risk with foresight. And the Golden one is the ethical compass that keeps culture intact when waves rise.
But the ocean also holds its deceivers. The Robalo nods at every idea but secretly neutralizes change. The Sargo is an innovation tourist who travels from one buzzword to another. The Eel adapts to every committee without driving any decision. And the Octopus wraps everything in complexity until no one remembers why change began.
These fish live where governance is weak. COBIT exists to bring clarity, accountability and purpose to these turbulent waters.
From Silos to Synergy
Hierarchies once brought stability. Today, they can bring inertia. In a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world driven by AI, agility depends on collaboration. The modern enterprise is a matrix, not a machine. Matrix models replace the question “Who’s in charge?” with “Who’s responsible?” Yet this shift demands trust, and trust demands better governance and management.
For more than a quarter century, COBIT has evolved alongside technology. It moved from control to management, from IT governance to enterprise governance of IT, and now to tailored governance of AI and digital value. Yet its essence never changed: to create value by balancing benefits, risk and resources.
COBIT restores the common language that unites strategy, risk, and technology, and like salt in the sea, it is everywhere and yet unnoticed. That is precisely why it matters.
Turning Principles into Practice
True transformation is not sustained by documents but by behavior. A good-practice approach inspired by COBIT demonstrates how governance principles translate into organizational action and resilience.
- Executive Sponsorship - Leadership and regulatory alignment act as catalysts for transformation, ensuring that governance is visibly led from the top and that strategic intent translates into accountable action.
- Stakeholder Engage - Communication and education are the foundations of cultural adoption, transforming governance frameworks from technical instruments into shared organizational language.
- Enterprise Performance - Shared goals and KPIs link governance objectives to measurable business outcomes, promoting collaboration across functions and aligning incentives with enterprise value creation.
- Establish Organizational Structures - Centers of excellence and governance structures institutionalize good practices, embedding continuity, oversight and accountability beyond individual initiatives.
- Continuous Experimentation - Iterative pilots and design factors enable organizations to learn fast, validate value and scale governance practices with evidence and contextual relevance.
This is how governance becomes culture. This is how organizations regain their salt.
From Control to Trust
“Power is nothing without control,” said the old Pirelli advertisement. Today we could add: control is nothing without trust.
As AI shapes decisions across the enterprise, governance must evolve from compliance to confidence. COBIT enables this evolution. It helps organizations govern autonomy, ensure ethics and sustain resilience while keeping innovation alive. It transforms oversight into empowerment.
The salt has not lost its saltiness. It is we who often forget to use it. Organizations crave transformation but fear discomfort. They confuse governance with bureaucracy when it is, in truth, liberation: the freedom to innovate within boundaries that protect value.
Father Vieira’s sermon ended with a challenge. If the fish could listen, perhaps the people would too. The same question echoes today for every leader and every board: in a world where digital transformation defines survival, good governance and management of information and technology are the disciplines that give it meaning. COBIT is not the destination of that journey; it is the engine that propels it forward.
About the author: Bruno Horta Soares is an Executive Advisor, University Professor, and President of ISACA Lisbon Chapter. He has been recognized globally for his work in corporate governance, digital trust, and AI-driven transformation. A frequent keynote speaker at ISACA global events, he continues to advocate for governance and trust as the true “salt” of digital transformation.
