In boardrooms across manufacturing, energy, and critical infrastructure, the conversation about OT/IT convergence is framed as a technology challenge. It isn't. The technology to bridge operational technology and information technology environments has existed for years. The real obstacle is organizational: no one wants to own the security of the converged environment.
IT security teams understand networks, endpoints, and identity management, but they often lack context for the physical processes that OT systems control. OT engineers understand the operational environment intimately, but they were never trained to think about cybersecurity, and their systems were designed for reliability and safety—not for defending against sophisticated threat actors. The result is a gap that neither team fills, and attackers know it.
Solving this problem requires more than a new tool or a reorganization chart. It requires a shared governance model that gives both IT and OT teams a voice in security decisions, a common risk language that translates operational impact into business terms, and executive sponsorship that refuses to let the convergence gap remain someone else's problem.