Embracing Digital Transformation

Everything will change. If you come away with anything from this blog, it is an understanding that it is critical that Boards of Directors and Executives understand that to succeed in today’s business environment, they must take a giant leap and embrace the digital transformation. Boards and executives are facing a myriad of challenges and can only successfully address them by leveraging artificial intelligence, data analytics, and digital communications. Everything will change – how board members interact with each other; how they make decisions; how they address issues from governance to corporate social responsibility; how they recruit and retain high performance executive teams; and how they will communicate with both shareholders and stakeholders.

The Digital World Has Already Passed the “Board Portal” (We do not use VHS tapes anymore)

Seven years ago, a major financial institution faced a dilemma. A board member left a binder of sensitive information in a taxi in New York City. Following this security breach, the board quickly adopted a ‘board portal.’ That solution, seven years later, presents an even greater problem. A portal application resides on a laptop, which if lost – in this hacker dominated society – is the equivalent of leaving sensitive information in thousands of taxis.

I spoke recently for more than 80 companies. Half of them use no technology at all. Board members expose the companies they serve/lead to unnecessary risks and are out of compliance. They incur unnecessary costs. They are often inefficient and ineffective. They do not leverage artificial intelligence, data analytics, or data communications that can be at their fingertips when analyzing the market, strategy, and/or recruiting and retaining high performance executive teams. Their shareholders are seizing upon social media. Boards of Directors must contend in a digital world and most of these boards remain clueless.

Our Board Member Will Not Use New Technology

“A ‘lame excuse’ is an excuse of poor quality or lack of thought or an inappropriate excuse.” If this statement is true about your current board of directors, your board members must become introspective and embrace digital technology or your company needs to find new board members. One does not go into battle with spears and swords against tanks.

The Solution– Adopt a Workplace Productivity Platform Designed for Board Members and Executives  

There is only one solution: A workplace productivity platform.

Implementing a workplace productivity platform means:

1. All of your documents are housed within the platform. Board member access, annotate, and store board documents in this single repository. At no time does that platform reside on anyone’s PC or Laptop – all of which can be hacked, stolen, lost, or break.
2. The platform can be accessed from any device, anytime, anywhere.
3. Board members communicate/message within the platform.
4. Your board meeting is run through the platform.
5. All of your committees use the same platform. One single sign-on.
6. You launch video conferencing through the platform. Any meeting can be attended from anywhere. Your meeting can be recorded. The platform utilizes artificial intelligence, translating voice to text. Voila – your transcripts/notes are ready – and available to your board members or committee members.
7. Your platform also provides both a prepopulated board evaluation tool and prepopulated D&O questionnaire.
8. The platform provides data around executive compensation. It is both a repository of almost 10,000 companies and their executive pay by job title and peer group composer. The platform is a data analytics engine that allows your board to identify the right compensation and incentive program for its top executives; score card those plans, and provides payout reporting at any time during the fiscal year.
9. The workplace productivity platform is also a shareholder/stakeholder communications engine (including survey/proxy tabulator). You build targeted groups of shareholders and stakeholders and utilize the platform’s digital communication capabilities. The geographic reporting features allow your board and executive teams to schedule road shows and meetings with stakeholders more efficiently. The digital educational and communication tools put the board of directors on an equal playing field to address social media and its impact on shareholder activism. The labor and mailing costs more than pay for the platform.
10. The workplace productivity platform for boards and executives is easy to use and intuitive. If someone can use a smart phone, that person can use this platform

The digital world has changed everything. Has your board and executive team changed with it?