Convene sat down with Joy Laws and IG Design Group to talk about how Convene has helped their meeting process, and the straightforward, intuitive design of the software.
Please describe your Board and management structure, and how frequently you meet as Board
We have the main PLC board, which is our main board of directors, and we use Convene for all board papers and agendas.
Then we also use Convene for the subcommittees, the classic remuneration committee, and the audit nomination committee.
The board itself meets 9 or 10 times a year, so realistically it’s pretty much monthly.
What led you to look for a Board portal, and what were you looking for in a system?
So we had a change in our non-executive directors on the Board and they were used to having a portal in their current company. So they just said ‘can we have a portal please?’.
For us, cost was a huge factor, so we didn’t want an all singing, all dancing portal. So I looked at Convene, the classic Diligent, but Diligent was just all singing, all dancing.
When I did speak to some company secretaries I knew in other organisations, they said, yes, Diligent has tonnes of capabilities, but we don’t use half of them.
Which features of Convene do you find the most useful in your job?
I mean I just like Convene. It’s simple. It’s quite intuitive. I do find it just very straightforward.
Interestingly, I’ve just had a deputy company secretary join me and she is used to using Diligent in her previous company and she’s finding Convene far more intuitive and is enjoying working with it more than she did Diligent. So there’s a win for you.
How have your Board and senior managers found Convene?
It purely depends on the type of individual it is. So, you know, if they’re not technologically savvy, it doesn’t matter what tool it is. So I’ve got one board member who insists I still send him things via e-mail because I can never log on to that portal. That’s just him.
Three of the board members solely use their iPad for Convene and follow electronically during the meeting. The other half like things printed for the actual board meeting and sit there with the endless paper copies of everything.
What was the level of support you’ve received from Convene and did it meet your expectations?
I think in terms of contacting you, it’s very good. I mean, I normally use the web chat thing, the online chat, and I think that’s always been really good.
But today I rang the number, and even then that was really good because I got somebody’s answer immediately and I was expecting to have an automated press 1 for this.
In terms of helping your meeting process, what sort of role does Convene play in that?
So building a meeting pack is great. You know, adding papers, etcetera. I do like the actions. That’s been a key benefit because I used to have a spreadsheet that was quite huge. So now I love the fact that when you’re creating the next meeting, you can only carry forward actions that are still outstanding.
I like the fact that the actions itself you can link with the agenda item and can see what meeting it arose out of. So I love all that.