One of the biggest benefits of paperless board meetings is the reduction in purchasing costs. Your organization can save a significant amount of money in a year if the need for paper is eliminated, or at the very least, minimized.
The other benefits of doing a paperless board meeting are less obvious but equally important. Here are seven of them:
1. Easier board pack management
Depending on the agenda of your board meeting, the traditional board pack can be as light as a few sheets of paper, but it can also be as bulky as a thick, hardbound book. If it’s the latter, you’ll most likely have to leave it at your home or office, but that gives you limited time to review it. In stark contrast to the traditional board pack, is the digital board pack which is a virtual version of all your meeting materials. It can fit in your device just fine, so you can take it wherever you go and read it whenever you can, even while waiting in line at the supermarket checkout.
2. Stronger boardroom security
A piece of paper bearing confidential information can get misplaced. But when you use board portal software such as OnBoard, BoardVantage, BoardPad, or Convene, everything you need is accessible online so you wouldn’t have to print out anything. These board meeting solutions have strict security measures in effect, so only participants have access to meeting resources. If a device is stolen or lost, board portal solutions such as Convene have an auto-purge feature that wipes out your data after several unauthorized attempts.
3. Improved boardroom collaboration through annotation and presentation features
According to a research done by Epson and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), workers can waste as much as 2 hours and 39 minutes every week in meetings. This wasted time costs billions in a year. Thus, it’s imperative to keep board meetings as short as possible, which you can do through collaboration. When participants are actively involved in a meeting, they arrive at resolutions faster. Convene lets everyone in a meeting work together in real time through highly responsive tools used for presenting, sharing files, making annotations, writing sticky notes, drawing freehand diagrams, etc.
4. Synchronized information through real-time updates
Using board meeting apps, updates are reflected in participants’ digital board books in real time. Last-minute changes are disseminated instantly, so everyone is always kept informed of the latest developments. This instantaneous synchronization allows everyone involved in the meeting to quickly adapt to unexpected circumstances. The same can’t be said for board meetings that still use traditional board packs. It takes a while to reprint and deliver revised materials, and sometimes, they don’t reach their intended recipients on time.
5. Simplified note-taking with iPad, Android, or other touchscreen devices
Scribbling notes on pieces of paper can lead to confusion when you review them later on. It’s easy to forget the reasons why you wrote down something when you don’t have context to go along with it. But when you go for paperless board meetings, you can make annotations on your personal copy of the presentation that’s saved in your tablet. Convene lets you keep your annotations for your own private use, or you can share them with everyone else in the meeting.
6. Higher levels of participation through remote meetings
When you go paperless, you can hold a board meeting even when participants are scattered all over the world. They can join a meeting through a phone call, a video conference, or an Convene session. This lowers travel costs for your organization because you don’t need to bring everyone to one venue.
7. Enhanced corporate social responsibility in line with environmental initiatives
Although paper can be recycled, it can’t be reused anymore after around six times. Its fibers get too short at this point, so they can no longer bond to form new paper. It’s inevitable that trees would still have to be cut down, but your organization can exercise its corporate social responsibility by lowering its paper consumption.
Is your organization ready for paperless board meetings?
If your organizations is ready to optimize and transform its board meeting process, then using a paperless board meeting solution would be your next step. Convene is the award-winning paperless board meeting solution that can be used on any devices such as iPad, Android, and Blackberry.
Find out more on how to get paperless meetings started or how to implement and finally transition towards a paperless boardroom.
Bob is the Sustainability and CSR Advisor at Convene. During his tenure in many environmental organizations, he has helped businesses in upholding corporate social responsibility by reducing consumption and waste. Bob is an advocate of environmental sustainability and, as part of his practice, imparts information and tips on how people and organizations can go green.
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