Technology has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. From the way we interact in our social lives, to the way we go about our day-to-day working lives. Most of the technology you use at work will have gone through a vetting process where your team or maybe even your CIO has sourced and found the best possible solution for your needs, however what happens when your business needs change? How do you know when your solution has outlived its usefulness?
Entity management solutions are still quite new in the scheme of things and are still yet to be widely used by organisations globally; however, eShare’s research has already highlighted a large gap between the needs of organisations in today’s complex business climate and the functionality of many solutions on the market.
At the recent ICSA Subsidiary Governance Conference held in London, we polled the company secretaries in attendance on their use of subsidiary governance software and discovered that 66% of those in attendance were using an entity management solution. This figure was already lower than we would anticipate, given the complexity of the task, but the next questions highlighted the need for a more agile and sophisticated system.
Boardroom communication is a topic very close to our hearts and we believe that this is the only way to improve governance within an organisation, through more transparent and auditable communication methods. This is why we were shocked to learn that 86% of those surveyed agreed that communication is a struggle between their entities, and only 28% were confident that their subsidiaries are on top of the relevant regulations in their jurisdictions.
Keeping on top of your subsidiaries is a must for any organisation to ensure that no regulation compliance deadlines are missed and that the subsidiaries do not fall foul of non-compliance, especially when dealing with subsidiaries overseas. In today’s media driven world, any governance failing is highlighted to your customers and consumers with sometimes disastrous consequences. One of the other important ways of achieving this is by having auditable communication channels up and down your entity map.
Company secretaries already often use a board portal to manage board meetings. By integrating board meetings with entity management you can automate many of the processes that need to be documented, like director appointments, quora and meeting outcomes for every subsidiary in your organisation, no matter how large or small. Overall, this will increase transparency and give a greater level of control.
Alister Esam, eShare’s CEO, who attended the event commented;
“The increased use of technology should be making our lives easier and reducing the time it takes to do our work, however most company secretaries are not seeing these benefits from the entity management solutions they’re currently using.”
“The ability to integrate your system with your board portal will make producing documents such as minutes and publishing them for board members to sign a much slicker operation. By digitising your minutes you are able to monitor activities like never before.”
Using the right entity management software puts you in the driving seat and helps you stay on top of compliance, and by linking this with you board portal used throughout the organisation, transparency is guaranteed and the audit trail for actions and decisions becomes crystal clear.
Today’s operating climate for businesses is more fluid than ever in terms of the means of communications and near endless possibilities of organisations and territories that they can co-operate with, which is why often the rigidity of regulation compliance can catch companies out. By implementing solutions that are already ahead of their time and developed by organisations focussed on driving change not just now but over the next few decades, you are putting yourself in the best possible position to capitalise on the benefits that digital transformation brings and securing your entire organisations future as well.
If you would like to know more about how eShare’s entity management and board portal solutions can help your organisation innovate around how you manage your entities, or to arrange a demo to see this in action, please get in touch.
