New technologies can change business patterns beyond recognition. Virtual board software is relatively new on the market, but it has already significantly changed the way businesses are run. Moving most business processes to a virtual format opens up many opportunities, but also raises many questions.
Why board portal software is becoming increasingly popular
Virtual board rooms for board members are inherited from videoconferencing platforms; with a degree of convention, they can be called an extended version of such platforms. In addition to the function of virtual meetings, virtual board rooms also enable the recording of meeting results, the scheduling and distribution of tasks between platform users, and the storage, forwarding and modification of documentation.
The advantages of such software are obvious:
- saving time, effort and money. By digitizing common business processes you can do the same thing, but much faster, without the expense of paper and mail and without the risk of losing information;
- the ability to connect to your work environment from anywhere in the world;
- accelerate the work process and increase its efficiency;
- streamlining the flow of information by providing real-time feedback, comments, and corrections.
In the long term, these board features as a phenomenon have the potential to radically change familiar business processes.
How board management software is changing the face of business right now
The pandemic has allowed virtual board rooms to show their full potential. Under their influence, business processes have begun to change significantly:
- Increased attendance and therefore employee engagement: the ability to connect remotely to the work environment at any time and from any location has eliminated the need for regular face-to-face meetings and the associated costs and risks;
- agendas have become shorter – with the ability to schedule more frequent meetings, there is no longer a need for long and general agendas, and it is possible to address specific issues in a better way;
- the ability to specifically assign tasks to each employee, and to track their performance, using statistics;
- communication between staff and managers has become much easier.
However, all of these changes are only a prologue to what the business sector can expect in the future.
How virtual board rooms will change business processes in the near future
Trends directly related to the use of virtual board rooms are already visible.
- The transition of most business processes to the digital space. This process has already begun (and the pandemic has contributed greatly to it), but we can expect it to intensify over time. It is possible that offices and offline meetings will become a rare anachronism.
- Increased employee involvement at all levels in business processes. Active information sharing will encourage (and in some ways provoke) employees to take the initiative and make them aware of current business processes. In the long run, this may lead to a sort of blurring of boundaries between managers at different levels which will require revision and reorganization of the management system itself.
- More transparent business decisions. Clearly, digitalization of work processes leads to an increase in the amount of business-related information in the work environment. Greater transparency can also entail a ‘growth disease’ in the form of the need to change the way information is presented and to involve interested employees more actively.
- It is possible to assume less formalization of business processes and business communication – as mentioned above, digital encourages more concise, specific, and ‘concentrated’ delivery of information.
Paperless meeting solutions can not only make organizing and documenting easier now, but also drive fundamental change in the future. Given the general trend towards increased use of online board meetings and document management in the digital space, this change is already inevitable. Some of the implications of digitizing workflows can be a challenge – but successfully overcoming such challenges will be the key to developing and improving business processes as such. You don’t have to be afraid of them, but you do need to be aware of what they are and think about solutions beforehand.
However, despite all the challenges, digitalization of business processes is a huge step forward, both in terms of improving efficiency and making them more ’employee friendly’. You shouldn’t be afraid of these processes – it’s a natural part of development.
