It’s amazing how just one application can dramatically increase the overall productivity and performance of the management team. All departments are united into one centralized structure and in various serious processes like audits and M&A. This is all thanks to boardroom software alone. This type of application has become so popular, even among small companies.
Who were Board Portals invented for?
Such a phenomenon as boardrooms came from large companies, which began to move into the digital age and gradually abandon paper. Later, most of these companies realized that it was a good niche for making money, and some started adapting their software to the needs of the other businesses. In this way, the market niche was being filled by small private development companies, which are major representatives of their fields now. Among them:
- Boardmaps;
- iDeals;
- Diligent;
- Boardvantage and many others.
What functions do these programs include?
Basically, all functions of board room software are aimed at optimizing the workflow, which is document management and communication. For example:
- The presence of advanced security, which is regulated by various ISO. In general, encryption is not a new thing and it is present in most applications, but the security in board portals is exceptional. As some experts say, board rooms have a really great level of protection, which can only be compared to top financial institutions like banks. This is necessary to prevent leaks of both personal and corporate data. In addition, the presence of flexible account security settings also makes a huge contribution to this area of business. For example, having specific access rights or activity monitoring is handy for every member of a company’s administrative staff.
- Completely paperless. It’s hard to even modern companies to abandon the use of paper completely. Paper is needed to make various copies, send documents by mail, and verify these documents with stamps in a peculiar way. Some representatives of the online board portal providers are giving ultra-modern features to handle documents. For those companies who are ready for it. In addition, the absence of paper is the broadest step to optimizing time costs.
- Optimizing the negotiation process. There are document management, user management, and meeting management inside board software. All of these tools are essential to running a productive business and optimizing time resources. For example, meetings can be set up on schedule as well as on an emergency basis. Notifications are instant, and there are tons of settings available.
- Task Manager. This is necessary for rights during the negotiation process among managers and administrators. Tasks can be set directly during the meeting and modified afterward. In addition, there is a voting feature that you can use to decide whether a particular task is worth taking into account.
- Flexible settings. If there is no built-in video conferencing tool, you can connect your board portal to third-party apps such as Zoom or Google Meets. But it’s better to use board software tools for video meetings as they are safer for your company. The point is that the data is going to a third party anyway, and it’s in your best interest to keep it as secure as possible.
What to ask the provider before you buy?
You have to ask the right questions to get a really good idea about a particular product:
- A couple of questions about safety. If you don’t know about modern security technologies and how they work, then you should at least be aware of the security practices of your ISP. If your potential ISP has SSL and AWS support, that’s just fine. That’s the highest point in security standards right now. It would also be interesting to know about the password policy. Preferably they should be as complex as possible by default.
- Reputation and services. Is this virtual boardroom software provider known among users? Or does it have no reviews at all? Pay attention to popular and in-demand providers and software developers of the board portals. Otherwise, your data can be unprotected from going to third parties.
- Price. The cost should be affordable for your company or at least have a trial version for the first time in order to look around properly and decide rationally. The main thing is not to rush with the choice. Usually, when the price is too high, it means the product is targeted mostly at large businesses and corporations with high document turnover. You might have a medium or small organization and need something less expensive. Some of the larger providers have a free billing option with some restrictions. Take a look at it, it may work for you.
