Board members find themselves tasked with looking after the health and direction of an organisation and this comes with a multitude of complex tasks, including directing the culture within the organisation. So with a dramatic rise in technology uptake over the years, it is time for them to get on board and start using technology to their advantage. It cannot be argued with that using technology has become a major part of our everyday culture within our personal lives, surely the benefits of such technologies should be realised for the boardroom. Technology solutions have continued to develop over the years with more options becoming available to help reduce the complexities of tasks and streamline duties, all have helped with efficiency improvements across our personal and professional lives.
With boardroom decision-making and effectiveness constantly under scrutiny, improvements and progress must become a part of the process, something that requires more than hoping the world falls at your feet. It requires boardroom members to be more proactive and push for improved processes, however, this is all down to the culture that has been built. Over the years, many board members and trustees have become accustomed to using paper and building their decision-making around a largely inefficient and often pricey method. However, technology solutions such as eShare’s board portal, BoardPacks, have created an opportunity for board members to champion technology within their organisation, creating a culture that fosters innovation, creativity, collaboration and better decision-making.
This is the reason we’re excited to attend this year’s African Corporate Governance Conference, hosted in Johannesburg, for the second time. We’re looking forward to seeing some familiar and new faces to discuss how we have and continue to help organisations improve their operations and decision-making at the top of the organisation. One of the key focus areas of the conference looks at leadership and board matters, and how fostering a culture of innovation is a foundation for transforming your leadership team from good to great. Fostering innovation has a host of positive benefits, the most prominent and important for board members — a higher growth trajectory.
This was reiterated in an article posted in 2017 on Engineering News ZA, however, the biggest problem facing the region when embracing innovation is that “the economic context is not conducive to undertaking such relatively high-risk endeavours,” says Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability CEO Davis Cook. With this in mind, how does an organisation with such constraints continue to explore the possibilities and benefits that innovation can offer? To improve innovation, impetus should be on ensuring that existing incentives, resources and capabilities are managed effectively. This is something that our BoardPacks solution can help with, as it helps you manage your resources more effectively with features such as its risk heatmap. The feature is a simple and effective way of managing your organisation’s risk and the associated decision-making alongside, all designed around helping you mitigate your risk more effectively.
We will be at the conference showing this off—among our other latest features—to attendees, showing how technology can help you manage your resources while allowing a culture of collaboration, creativity and innovation to be fostered from the top to the bottom of the organisation. Importantly, this also enables your boardroom to take advantage of opportunities in areas previously deemed too risky, helping the organisation grow.
If you are attending the 24th African Corporate Governance Conference, hosted at the Premier Hotel or Tambo, Johannesburg, and would like to know how eShare can help to improve your overall operational success, please come visit us at our stand. We will also be running our famous Lego Star Wars prize, so if you would like to be in with a chance of winning, pop over to the stand to find out more. Alternatively, please get in touch with us today to request a brochure and a free online demonstration.
