Introduction
Technology over the years has seamlessly integrated with corporate governance. A recent Forbes article by Betsy Atkins, founder of Baja Ventures, says that corporate governance today is stepping into its 4th era of evolution after initially emerging as a concept in the 1930s. This 4th era, also named as ‘Corporate Governance 4.0’, is about making enterprises more competent, competitive and pertinent. And without any surprises, the latest era of evolution of board corporate governance will primarily rely on technology enablement in addition to proofing for the future. In the words of Dilip Ganeriwal, founder and Managing Director of Dess, ‘to keep up with change, technology needs to be easy and technology needs to be inexpensive at all stages’.
The Purpose
As charity is said to start at home, similarly, adapting to evolving standards of corporate governance for enterprises starts with its Board of Directors. Effective corporate governance involves instituting intelligible roles for the:
- Chairperson
- Board Directors
- CEO
- CFO
- Management Teams
- Board Committees, including statutory & non-statutory committees.
Boards ideally need to continue iterating policies for changing nature of events relating to environmental, social and governance (ESG), whistleblowing, code of conduct, conflicts of interest and codes of ethics among others.
The Board Evaluation in corporate governance needs to pursue such changes in tandem with the Leadership, Management Teams and Corporate Secretary among other special invitees and permanent invitees such as industry experts, financial and secretarial auditors, lawyers and compliance specialists. With such disparate set of professionals engaging for critical enterprise matters, efficient collaboration of the board using a complete board portal is essential.
The Impact
The use of technology for keeping up with corporate governance standards starts with a complete board portal software solution which leads to board automation and effective leadership collaboration. The goal of meeting evolving good corporate governance standards reflects when enterprises are able to promote equity and prevent deceptive events and frauds and a complete board portal can streamline various areas for corporations including:
Agenda Management
A complete agenda management software solution can create digital agenda and boardbooks spanning any exhaustive volume of data and pages. Board packs can be swiftly organized, edited, reviewed, re-ordered and re-numbered. Particular sections of agenda items can be made selectively visible, changed, replaced and deleted on-the-go. For a qualified company secretary and executive assistant, painstaking hassle of preparing agenda manually or with limited tools becomes unnecessary.
Easy Accessibility
A complete paperless meetings software solution is intuitively designed and easy to use. Board Members of all age groups and including the ones who consider themselves to be not tech-savvy can experience flexibility and seamlessness. Assisted with end-to-end hand holding, training and support, detailed board activities such as voting and surveys, attendance, performance evaluation, circular resolution can be completed with a few clicks.
Workflow with Digital Approvals
A maker checker review built within a complete board meetings management solution can ensure that meeting documents flow as per the hierarchy and roles within the company. With digital signature integration for online approval, board information can go through the right chain of command. The maker-checker also tracks version management of board books to accommodate complex nature of content and ongoing changes by reviewers and approvers. Such a workflow helps the board and the enterprise achieve detailed evaluation of critical board data.
Cross Platform
With a complete electronic board and committee meetings solution, ease of use and concurrent use on all operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows and all devices including smartphones, tablet computers, personal computers, laptops becomes possible. Paired with easy login features like fingerprint login and facial recognition using phone camera, such a solution can securely, yet easily, be accessed by Board Members.
Annotations and Inputs
Collaboration of Board Members becomes more effective with a complete board portal solution via its features to discuss, chat, share thoughts on the basis of specific portions of the boardbook or overall, in general. Visibility to particular board engagements can be controlled amongst board of directors based on the nature of discussions. Annotating is seamless with stylus compatibility as well as finger compatibility which can be used to mark important text for self-analysis or write/draw to illustrate shared points.
The Right Solution
As a preferred choice of leading boards, Dess Digital Meetings is a complete board portal solution to help corporations meet the changing avenues of corporate governance. The Dess software provides a holistic board management software including:
- Agenda Management
- Board and Performance Evaluation
- One-touch Video Conferencing Integration
- Calendar Management
- Digital Signature Integration
- Compliance Management
- Leadership Collaboration
- Draft and Final Meeting Minutes Management
- among other features
The innovative paperless meetings solution by Dess augments agility, decision-making and record-keeping for Board Members, CXOs and Company Secretaries.
Conclusion
For the purported era of evolution in corporate governance and its future changes, the role of Board Members and Leadership Teams is to be a competitive strength to the enterprise. With the assistance of the right technology, the involvement of Board of Directors and CXOs can be a vital accelerant for the enterprise. A risk to enterprises is that not using the right technology can mean missing the trends of change, which end up affecting offerings and business models. Achieving digital board meetings contributes to the purpose of meeting corporate governance standards as it supports the enterprise from losing momentum, maintaining its relevance and nurturing growth. This aids the enterprise to add in-depth viewpoints that discourage errors and promote clarity which adds to shareholder trust and benefits all stakeholders.
To know more how your enterprise can use the digital meetings technology to keep up with corporate governance trends, contact us here or write to [email protected] for a free demo and product trial.
