Boardroom meetings and paperwork have always gone hand in hand. Each meeting needs a large bundle of paperwork, traditionally known as a board pack. These board packs involve someone managing and collating a pile of important documents which are notoriously a lot of hassle for everyone involved – from the admin that prepares them to the board member navigating through them tediously in preparation for their next meeting.
The iPad paved the way to make the paperless boardroom a reality.
The iPad has changed the way boardroom meetings are conducted. Overnight, meetings were able to go paperless and board portal software became a revolutionary tool for savvy organisations. Tablet devices are now so straightforward to use that it can now serve as a simple platform for managing your entire boardroom meeting process that anyone can use.
By combining the readability of printed paper with the immediacy of having board papers available for online access, a tablet device offers users an experience that takes them in huge leaps past traditional paper filled boardrooms.
Advantages of paperless meetings
The benefits of using board portal software to bring your boardroom into the digital age should be clear to see, but there are still a large number of organisations that have yet to take advantage. Here is a selection of benefits that any organisation can expect to see:
Less for admin staff to prepare, collate and distribute
When updating or amending paper documents as part of a board pack, it can be time consuming for administrators as the updated papers have to be reprinted and distributed to each board member by special courier. As it is vital that the entire boardroom is using the most up to date papers, by using a board portal the updates can all be done stress free and delivered instantly to the device of each board member directly.
Reduced costs savings and better use of staff hours.
An organisation should expect to see significantly lower costs through a reduction of paper and printing expenses. Not only will the company save costs on materials, but also on ‘man hour’ costs as your admin staff spend their time on more productive tasks than the creation of the paper packs.
Keep sensitive board information secure
Board packs can contain very sensitive information that many people would like to get their hands on. By sending or emailing paper or PDF board packs an organisation is opening themselves up to unnecessary and avoidable risk. The fact that papers could simply be misplaced, intercepted or lost in the post should worry any board member. A good board portal will ensure your board materials are kept secure with special encryption techniques. Even if a device is stolen, you can simply delete the information from the device remotely as an extra precaution.
See previous blog where we discussed the importance of boardroom security.
Other organisations are having great success from going digital
Our BoardPacks software has helped a number of organisations, of all sizes and various sectors, go paperless. Exeter College, a provider of tertiary education for around 10,000 to 12,000 students, choose to use our board portal and have enjoyed great success from its implementation. After their digital transformation, Barbara Sweeney, Clerk to the Corporation commented:
“There were two main drivers behind our engagement with BoardPacks. At a recent annual appraisal, several of our board members, from both the private and public sectors, advised that whilst papers were reaching them in a timely fashion, it could be difficult to access them when working nationally or internationally. This meant they were often unable to review them until they returned to Exeter.
“In addition, if the board member was not at home when we posted the papers out, they might be sent back to the sorting office, which again would cause delays in them being reviewed. “With twenty plus packs being printed for governors and senior management, the printing and postage costs were also a huge concern. We estimated printing and postage costs were around £5,000 – £6,000 each year and by sending these ahead of a meeting, we were risking some of the data, particularly the financials, being out of date by the time the meeting came around.”
“When looking for alternatives to paper-based documents, we considered electronic solutions, such as PDFs, however these did not give us and our board members the option to annotate notes, unless printed.”
“The solution has been universally welcomed and one of the biggest benefits is that we’re able to be more green – and make substantial savings on paper and printing costs. It’s also invaluable that we’re able to be more flexible when members are working away from home so they are still able to review and update the papers once they’ve been changed. We can now make last-minute changes, upload and advise members and once refreshed, they can instantly review the latest version.”
You can read the full case study, and others like it, on our website
It is time to transform your organisation
With costs of paper for printing being reduced and board packs moved to a secure digital platform transformed for hassle free remote access, there is no doubt that an organisation will experience significant positive changes once it implements paperless meetings with a board portal like BoardPacks.
If you would like to request a demo of our BoardPacks software or simply ask a few question, please do get in touch via our contact page.
