Unlocking Efficiency by Harnessing Governance Technology for Your Community Bank Board
As a community bank board member facing a digital landscape that continues to rapidly evolve and impact the financial services industry, we are guessing you probably would like to position yourself as a tech-enabled decision-maker.
Governance technology is an essential step toward the digital transformation of your board and organization. Here is why you should use governance technology to increase efficiency for your community bank or credit union board.
How Governance Technology Can Increase Efficiency for Your Community Bank Board
There’s no doubt there are efficiency challenges that boards and organizations face when they don’t use governance technology. The costs of those challenges can add up, and implementing governance technology really does deliver a return on investment – not to mention a myriad of benefits for your board’s efficiency.
Most, if not all, governance professionals have spent time shuffling through board packets trying to find the right documents to review. Everyone wants more efficient board meetings, and busy board members not only want to maximize their time, but also find solutions that will improve their efficiency and save their organization money.
Efficiency Challenges Without Board Technology
If you are not using board technology, preparing for board meetings can be a time-consuming challenge that drains board efficiency.
Without boardroom technology, hard copies of meeting minutes need to be printed — and any edits or changes to those mean reprinting.
Even if you are using soft copies (e.g., in Word or PDF), any agenda changes or edits to board packets have to be re-sent by email, with potentially multiple versions to keep track of. Emails are not an efficient or secure way to keep track of many pieces of information for one board meeting, or ensure every board member gets adequate lead time.
The end result? Less time for board members to review materials. In fact, they may even be reviewing out-of-date material if they don’t open the correct copy or version.
Download the Board Effectiveness Checklist to identify areas of improvement and apply best practices for a more effective, productive and successful board.
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The Cost of All That Inefficiency – And the Gains That Come From Fixing It
Inefficient processes slow down workflows. Slow workflows impact cash flow. The slower the processes, the more money credit unions or community banks lose.
Inefficiency also causes staff and boards to lose time. What many boards fail to account for is how much all that lost time adds up. While one person losing a few minutes may not seem like a lot, when that’s multiplied by many people, it gets harder to ignore.
Ultimately, such inefficiencies lead to staff having less time to address organizational goals. Improved efficiency not only results in reduced costs but also ends up having a positive effect on the mission.
Bank board members should push their organizations to establish effectiveness and efficiency measures. Using governance technology is a key enabler for that goal.
What Board Technology Can Deliver
Governance technology can deliver a variety of efficiencies across the board’s and organization’s processes:
- A centralized board portal for storing materials that ensures l ensures access to the most current information
- Improved workflows for updating and distributing sensitive documents
- More time for board members to review documents before meetings
- Streamlined versions of documents, which ensures all parties access the most recent version
- Fast, secure access to documents board members regularly need
- The most up-to-date information, so board members to address time-sensitive organizational issues
- Dramatically reduced printing times and costs
There Is a Return on Investment If Your Board Uses Technology
More efficient processes help keep everything up to date. By using technology to deliver more data, not to mention higher quality data, board members have the right information at the right time to aid in key decision-making.
This also mitigates risks, saves time and money, and improves the organization’s reputational status.
Additionally, board members and staff won’t spend as much time backtracking to retrieve needed data, which frees them up to focus on other, more strategic activities.
At the end of the day, using governance technology for your credit union or community bank board provides measurable efficiencies and benefits, and delivers a return on investment which more than justifies its cost.
Have you considered purchasing a board management solution to manage and streamline board operations? With BoardEffect, you can automate board meeting processes, such as meeting preparation, taking minutes, sharing documents and collaborating.
BoardEffect, a Diligent solution, leads in providing innovative boardroom technology to nonprofit organizations. Serving over 14,000 mission-driven organizations, Diligent empowers boards with tools to drive positive change. Our secure board management software streamlines operations, enhances governance practices, and enables confident decision-making. With BoardEffect, mission-driven organizations unlock potential, accelerate mission delivery, and make lasting impact in their communities.
