As cloud technology replaced old-school business practices, online collaboration and data management became more common. Today, the business world has almost moved to digital channels for communication, process automation, and data storage and management.
At the same time, diverse and geographically displaced corporate leadership has moved to digital methods such as board portal software. Due to this, today’s discussion revolves around:
- What is a board portal?
- Who can use it?
- How does it benefit a business or company?
- Top board portal vendors
What is a board portal?
A board portal or board meeting management software is a cloud-based, digital platform for conducting online board meetings, storing and managing board material, and ensuring real-time communication between board members or other business officials.
As board software is an online business solution, boardroom users can access it from their homes, offices, or any place on earth with an internet facility. As a matter of fact, modern boardroom technologies allow users to access data stored in the boardrooms without any internet connection.
A diverse and multi-purpose business solution differentiates virtual boardroom software from other online collaboration platforms. It is amongst very few meeting management software that allows you to:
- Store and share a voluminous amount of data
- Automate board document management
- Arrange online meetings
- Ensure communication between board members, stakeholders, investors, and third parties
- Facilitate online dealmaking
Most importantly, board management software is usually managed and hosted by registered or certified virtual boardroom vendors. These vendors comply with strict cyber security standards international organizations and local governing bodies set. Common cyber security compliances include ISO 27081, ISO 27001, HIPAA, FINRA, SOC2, GDPR, and HIPPA.
Who uses board management software?
Virtual boardroom software is an extensively used solution in almost every business sector. Corporate boards, secretaries, CEOs, managers, investors, nonprofit organizations, board presidents, enterprises, small companies, and other business entities use board portals for various reasons.
Why does your business need board software?
Following are some major reasons why board management software can be an excellent asset for your company.
- Board document management
Whether a board of directors manages your company or you have a different hierarchical structure, a virtual boardroom can automate your document management. You can use the board portal as a central document repository to safely store and manage board documents, board packs, financial statements and ledgers, and other corporate documents.
It is a misconception that board portals are limited for board usage or board-related documents. For example, you can store your business data in virtual boardrooms and allow your managers and employees to use it as a data repository.
- Data security
Using board software ensures that cyber threats are the least of your concerns. That’s because digital boardrooms are one of the safest ways to manage your business and board documents. In addition, board management software has a wide range of security features that protect your data and communication from external and internal threats.
However, data protection is only possible if you hire a certified boardroom service provider that complies with the mandatory and optional certifications mentioned above. Notable security features in boardrooms include multi-factor authorization, boardroom access settings, scheduled boardroom access, IP access restrictions, remote device cleaning feature, NDAs, data encryption, and data backup.
- Control over corporate data flow
Inboard software lets you exercise complete control over your corporate and board documents. For example, you can restrict your employees from accessing board documents and other confidential data if you have a small company and use a virtual boardroom as your primary data storage.
Similarly, you can give customized access to your company board or senior officials per their needs. You can also create different user groups, and nobody will be able to access users and documents of another group unless you allow it.
To ensure further document protection, you can add digital watermarks to documents, revoke document access, remotely shred any document from a device’s browsing history, and limit any user from editing, changing, overwriting, printing, or downloading any particular document.
- Streamlined online board meetings
A virtual boardroom is ideal for conducting online business meetings for your project teams and board members. The best thing about board portals is that they have every meeting management tool you need.
For example, you can do the following:
- Prepare and share the meeting agenda
- Make real-time changes in the agenda
- Take and share notes during meetings
- Record, edit, finalize and share meeting minutes
- Use audio and video conferencing tools for meetings
- Ask meeting participants to cast votes electronically
- Get documents and agreements signed within the boardroom via electronic signatures
- Assign, track and manage tasks given to meeting participants
- Cost-efficiency
Where a board portal helps you with document board management, seamless online communication, and online board meeting management, it also saves you thousands of dollars every year.
Firstly, a virtual boardroom reduces your paper, printing, and courier costs to a massive extent. The money spent on printing, assembling, and distributing board packs can be saved.
Secondly, your company can reduce or even eliminate board meeting expenses, including the traveling costs of your directors or team members.
Some of the best virtual boardrooms include:
- iDeals board portals
- Nasdaq Boardvantage
- Diligent Boards
- Boardpac
- Govenda
Summing it up
Board portal software is a digital collaboration tool for board members, managers, investors, stakeholders, and other managerial to mid-level officials. It can store and manage board documents, streamline board meetings, and help reduce overall administrative costs.