11 tips for moving to paperless board meetings

Executives Committees, Boards of Directors and supervisory Boards are key bodies within a company. Crucial information is exchanged there, which affect both the company development priorities and its teams: definition of business or marketing strategy, making financial or organizational decisions, investment monitoring, crisis management, etc.

Promote communication

Although clearly of great importance, confidentiality is not the only challenge facing company directors and executives: they must also create an environment that encourages constructive debate. This environment should enable board members to participate despite busy schedules and mobility constraints.

Choose the right solutionToday, solutions exist that can help throughout the life-cycle of these meetings. Intuitive, they facilitate upstream preparation by reducing email exchanges and the sending of paper documents. They offer a secure way to exchange files and messages with no risk of them being intercepted by third parties, from writing the agenda to sharing the minutes of the meeting.

Follow these 11 tips for choosing the right paperless board meeting solution:

1. Choose a dedicated solution

Today, there are many excellent general solutions that have been adapted for professionals. But choosing a dedicated solution for planning meetings means you have access to the tools you need to increase your efficiency.

2. Maintain control of access

Opt for software that offers strong authentication.

3. Take data encryption into account

For optimal security, data should be encrypted with a powerful algorithm throughout its life cycle, during both storage and transfer. You should be able to fall back on a HSM where your confidentiality requirements make this a necessity.

4. Choose a solution that is independent of the company’s network

In choosing a SaaS-mode solution, you should place your most critical, sensitive date on servers that are completely independent of the internal company network, thus guaranteeing optimal confidentiality.

5. Centralize your documents

Opt for a solution that allows you to bring together all of the documents associated with each meeting within a single protected space. This means you can avoid unsecured communication by email or mail and limit the risk of confidential data being lost or stolen.

6. Ensure the integrity of your documents

Documents must be altered when they are stored within the software if they are to maintain the same legal value as paper documents. The chosen solution should therefore include functionalities that allow for optimal traceability of access and actions carried out using the interface.

7. Encourage and facilitate communication

Beyond the documents themselves, your dedicated meeting organization solution should enable each participant to communicate using various tools, chat, voting module, etc. These tools should be intuitive so that using them is quick and easy.

8. Simplify the preparation process

Functionalities like the ability to comment on documents and consult them off-line mean that board meetings can be prepared more easily, even if participants are away from the office.

9. Choose optimal mobile security

Check that the solution chosen offers suitable mobile options for the specific risks these devices entail: a security code when the app is launched, remote wipe if the tablet is lost or stolen, etc.

10. Protect your data under the European legislative framework

Choose a service provider that is not subject to the American freedom Act (formerly the Patriot Act) and that hosts your date in Europe. This guarantees you better protection in terms of data security.

11. Check the reliability of your service provider

Has the service provider been on the market for a long time? Does it have structured teams? Does it hold certifications proving its commitment to security? Do the data centers where it hosts your data guarantee sufficient protection?