The decision to invest in a board portal should be made with the overall return on investment in mind, and not solely based on the cost of the technology. Many factors must be taken into consideration when assessing the cost of different portals, including the variety of features available and the quality of customer support, secure document storage volume and more. It is essential to take into consideration other expenses associated with the implementation of the portal, in addition to the price.
This includes the cost of making sure your board’s tech-savvy capabilities are in place to take on the new software, and to ensure that you don’t pay for features that won’t be used. In order to avoid these issues, make sure to engage key stakeholders–including board members and IT personnel–early in the process of choosing a portal.
A board management tool can help your board save lots of time. The amount of time directors invest in preparing for meetings, analyzing and reading documents, as well as communicating with other directors can be drastically reduced through the use of an online portal for boards. This can add up to days of wasted time, especially for boards with multiple members from different locations.
In addition to the direct benefits of saving time Board portals protect and improve fundamental cornerstones of corporate governance. These include confidentiality, transparency and efficiency. The long-term cost of not implementing these standards is much greater than any savings you can make by shirking the expense of a portal.