Modern companies are complex structures with many branches of power and responsibilities.
Numerous directors and TOP managers need a place for private and convenient discussion of secret business information in a space with remote access available 24/7. Virtual board rooms satisfy all these requirements.
What Is Virtual Board Room?
Virtual board room (or board portal) is the decentralized remote software, designed for private regular meetings and company governance by top managers of a company. It contains all necessary business tools and maintains strict privacy and security conditions.
Virtual board room helps to speed up business processes, prevent mistakes and сheck the effectiveness of followed strategies. Though virtual board rooms were created for company top management, they are also useful for different social projects, investments, charity, and other fundraising.
Virtual Board Room Functionality
The toolkit of a virtual board portal depends on the provider, but the common for most of them contain these components.
- Scheduling programs for coordinating board meetings. They often include calendars and simple bots, for example, for email notifications about a meeting time.
- Committee management tools.
- Board list with information about board room members, generally names, positions and contacts.
- Virtual rooms for online board meeting.
- Voting tools.
- Agenda plugins.
- Document applications for using and secure sharing of attached files.
- Coworking plugins for simultaneous coworking, commenting, change tracking and version saving.
- Special device versions for desktops, laptops, browsers, tablets and smartphones, for Android and iOS.
- Logging bots track and write down system and users’ feedback to improve interface and functionality.
- Security software: advanced encryption, clustered document storage and virtual data rooms.
- Access management. Allows to create guest accounts and control their permissions.
The most well-known board portals are Convene, iBabs, Govrn, OnBoard and Wrike, but they are not the only ones. There are full virtual boardroom overviews here.
Virtual Board Room Advantages
Virtual board software has 5 main advantages over regular complexes of meeting, scheduling and project programs.
Remote Access
Unlike a company inner server, a virtual board room ensure that every company member has reliable contact with others 24/7. Both data and software are stored at a net of remote servers, and they are independent of schedule or incidents at the certain office. Any manager can anytime get the results of his colleague even from the opposite time zone.
Speed
As all files from different offices in different places are stored in one board room, their search and analytics speed up exponentially. All downloaded documents can be immediately seen by all board members, and board management software allows to automate most of simple analytical tasks. For example, a diligence process may take up to 6 months, including time for mailing, searching and recovering of lost documents. With a board room it shortens to weeks and even days.
Privacy and Security
A virtual board room has a complex protection against most data dangers.
- Firstly it provides convenient ways to exchange and to cowork on files, so board members don’t need to use unsafe channels like emails and messengers.
- Multilayer encrypting and multi-factor authorization secure of hacks, corporate espionage and data leaks.
- The data is stored at the multiple servers, files are copied multiple times, therefore they can’t be lost even after corruption of part of the servers.
- All user and system actions are tracked by board administrators, who can forbid them and back up data. This solution allows to сonteract both hacking attacks and users’ errors.
Usability
Virtual board portal software includes all standard business, but already integrated in a one complex. Its every part perfectly fits others, interconnects them to share results. Its processing speed does not depend on the computing power of a device, and a board member can access a room from PC, laptop, and smartphone.
Unique Tools
Virtual board room is the only option that provides business voting tools. Votes are counted immediately, the results become known in seconds and can be implemented just after a meeting.
Virtual Board Room Disadvantages
Virtual board room meets all business demands, but, comparing to offline board rooms, it has some limits and restrictions, defined by its conception. If they are critical for your company, virtual board room is not a paperless meeting solution for you.
Internet Reliance
Remote access means total Internet reliance. When the Internet fails, a company internal server and intranet continue working, and communication between managers remains possible. But remote servers are not accessible without the Internet.
Restricted Customizing
If the board room doesn’t contain software for a company’s special needs, it will probably never have it. Virtual board rooms are not open source projects, therefore a customer can’t just add his own thing based on the board API. A company has to ask its provider to add the necessary plugins, in a case of agreement this service will be very expensive. The even more expensive solution is to develop the program from zero.
Despite some disadvantages, a virtual board room is very useful for almost every company. It helps to get more profits, saves your money and time.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to be a recommendation. The author is not responsible for any resulting actions of the company during your trading experience.
