Board Portals: No Assembly Required

Say "Goodbye" to traditional board meetings and say "Hello" to board portals. Over the last few years, so-called "board portals" have been taking over the board process, moving briefing books online. Similar to other information portals (like Yahoo!), board portals put vital board meeting information in one central location, thus allowing busy executives and board members to quickly and easily access the information they need to make decisions. Before board portals, executives had to lug their laptops and stacks of printed hard copy materials to board meetings. According to James Long, vice chairman of Wackenhut Services, board portals prevent directors at board meetings from being weighed down by an abundance of paper materials. By putting these board materials in a portal, businesses can benefit in a multitude of ways. Board portals can:

• improve communication among board members
• reduce travel requirements
• eliminate mailing and delivery hassles
• reduce paper waste and the cost of office supplies
• safeguard the privacy of board materials
• save time and effort

The BusinessWeek article "Board Portals: No Assembly Required" discusses the increasing adoption of board portals and evaluates a few of today's most popular portal packages available for companies. Ranging in price from an average of $25,000-$40,000, portal packages provide all the aforementioned advantages, as well as 24/7 support and on-site training.

If your firm is interested in adopting this new service, here is a list of the portal providers described in the BusinessWeek article:

• Directors Desk by Nasdaq
• BoardBooks by Diligent
• BoardLink by Thomson
• BoardVantage
• Leaders4 Board Information Management by 80-20

As a business professional, wouldn't you love to have critical information at your fingertips without having to shuffle through tons of papers?

Or do you think there are drawbacks to moving the board process to a more virtual, paperless environment?