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Main Reasons Why Team Collaboration Software Can’t Replace a Board Portal

Despite the numerous benefits of adopting a board portal, some organizations continue to handle board activities using “mass market” collaboration tools such as Google Workspace, Microsoft SharePoint, and/or Teams, among others. In truth, comparing a board portal to team collaboration software is like comparing a custom program to a one-size-fits-all solution.

Why Can’t Team Collaboration Software Take the Place of a Board Portal?

In many processes, the latter may “do the job,” but it’s not a solution tailored to the way boards work and function. From process training issues to disillusioned board members, inefficiencies resulting from the use of these collaboration and cloud storage solutions come at a high price.

Let’s look at why team collaboration software can’t completely replace board management software:

As A Centralized Portal for the Board’s Needs, Team Collaboration Platforms Are Often Ineffective

To handle the full board meeting process, team collaboration platforms are not nearly as effective as a single hub.

To support the board meeting process, many of these collaborative solutions require a portfolio of independent products. Shifting from one program to another, from scheduling and calendar apps (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar in Google Workspace) to task management tools, can result in a significant amount of time wasted traversing a process for getting simple board work done.

For Board Governance Tasks, There Is A Significant Features Gap

Team collaboration software does not provide integrated features that make it simpler and safer for boards to carry out their governance obligations, which is related to the first concern highlighted above.

The lack of features specific to corporate governance tasks in mass collaboration tools—such as e-signatures, voting, meeting minutes tracking, attendance reporting, and so on—makes it difficult for company administrators and board members to work efficiently, effectively, and securely from a single platform.

In many cases, corporate secretaries must be inventive and creative in order to customize and alter the general features of team communication software for the board of directors.

Board members, on the other hand, are frequently forced to deal with “band-aid” solutions that make it difficult to carry out their governance tasks.

 

Risks to Security

Many boards of directors use the same team collaboration platforms as the rest of the company. Despite the fact that the majority of team collaboration software applications are based on secure cloud infrastructure, they are nonetheless vulnerable to (and targets of) internal and external data breaches, cyber-incidents, and cyberattacks.

It’s critical to secure and safeguard an organization’s information assets by not putting them all in one system or platform. This carries a substantial risk. The board’s platform will be breached or attacked if the organization’s collaboration platform is breached or attacked. This may jeopardize the board’s capacity to lead in the most critical of situations.

Concerns about Data Privacy

Many of today’s team collaboration platforms are safe.

Individual accounts or sign-ups are required to set up and utilize team collaboration software, and this requires the revealing of personal information.

While most of these apps manage data responsibly, their data privacy rules are always worth reviewing, especially when it comes to data collecting, monitoring, transparency, third-party access, and how personal information may be used.

It Is Difficult to Organize and Structure Information for the Board

Creating a board pack and then distributing it for the board’s consideration may be a difficult, frustrating, and time-consuming procedure. It may jeopardize the board’s required degree of participation.

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