The Board Meeting is a meet-up of the board of directors of an organization that occurs at fixed intervals for deciding on the policies and issues of the organization. The board of directors is elected by the shareholders of the company or simply its members to make the overall organizational strategy.
A board meeting is a vital part of a company’s operations because they determine the route of its growth. These board meetings are used for reviewing performance, addressing key issues, considering policy problems, performing the legal and financial operations, etc.
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What is a Board Meeting?
Definition: A board meeting is defined as a formal meeting that brings together all the board members of a company to do the needful decision-making that aids the company’s working and growth. The board meeting takes place at specific intervals that are pre-decided.
It is understood as the official gathering of a company’s governing body scheduled periodically or whenever required for the company’s functions. It evaluates progress, discusses strategic concerns, handles serious challenges, and conducts the committee’s operations.
The board meeting would also have to fulfill the regulatory standards. It would generally be headed by the company’s chairman.
Some guests are also invited to attend the meeting with the board member of the organization. The government requires the companies to give out some basic guidelines on the working of the meetings that will be prepared when the company’s operating agreements are drafted.
The minutes, the final document including all the rules and regulations for the meetings, are published and become a legal document.
Importance of Board Meeting
Board meeting forms an essential part of how a company operates. They are equally crucial for the survival as well as the growth of the business. The strategy of the company, on which the whole organization works, is decided by the board members in exactly those meetings. The working of the management to check the progress of the long-term goals of the company is also overseen by the board of directors that is discussed in a board meeting.
One could only imagine the difficulties of in-person meetings faced by the companies to hold a board meeting after everything shifted online due to the pandemic. Although, that doesn’t mean that one could compromise on holding the board meeting. Virtual board meeting tools like Zoom or Google Meet help members be present and discuss on an agenda in a board meeting.
These meetings help directors to talk about different organizational issues and share operational documents to channelize organizational growth in the right direction. It helps in reviewing the company’s performance and optimizing productivity.
How often do the board meetings take place?
A board meeting is pre-decided to happen in certain intervals, usually twice a year or quarterly. However, this is at the company’s discretion as a particular organization might require more meetings per year to work efficiently.
In the end, the purpose of the meeting should be completed; how many times they happen isn’t the main question. The main functions of the sessions, like giving the board members a platform to discuss all the workings of the company and to plan for the future, should be the primary focus while deciding the intervals for board meetings.
How is a Board Meeting conducted?
A board meeting can either happen physically, as in, face-to-face, or virtually through video-conferencing. During a lockdown, conducting a physical meeting becomes nearly impossible. That is when video-conferencing software and meeting-room systems come into the picture.
When technology turns easier to use, more and more people are encouraged to use it in times of need. As voice calls can’t fulfill the need for nonverbal communication (speaking without words), video calling platforms come in handy for board meetings.
When an organization wishes to conduct a hybrid meeting, using software like BoardPAC makes it easier for the members to communicate efficiently. The feature of conducting cloud video conferencing while allowing the members to exchange sensitive information confidentially becomes the biggest factor favoring this software.
Key Topics discussed in Board Meetings
An aimless meeting can turn boring and fails to realize the time’s worth. A pre-decided discussion plan always helps to ensure that the meeting turns out to be fruitful.
By setting the goals beforehand for the meeting, the organizers save everyone’s valuable time and ensure that the meeting turns out to be a good decision-making session. Generally, these are the five most important issues covered by a board meeting:
1. Performance
Keeping in check how an organization is performing is important to keep track of the long-term goals. Discussing how much the company has made progress since the last meeting is the most important thing, which usually becomes the opening topic for any board meeting. The share in the market becomes an important factor in marking the growth of the company.
The entity’s performance includes discussing the achievements, production and sale reports, completed targets and the missed ones, and incidents that took place since the last meeting. The meeting that revolves around performance can also include the target-setting for the future and discuss the main points for the following meetings.
2. Planning for future
Planning for future aims is always important for an organization because knowing where the operations will lead you is a comfortable position for the members to be in. Discussing the strategy for the business, including financial and marketing issues, is the essential facet of discussing future planning.
The presenting of new ideas and strategies shouldn’t be only in the hands of the directors but also the other members at various managerial levels. The members discuss different strategies and, upon a few, to keep the operations going. Expanding the market share becomes easy when the goals are set straight.
3. Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators are some happenings that depict the progress of an organization. After the strategies are developed, these indicators are decided so members can easily track their growth.
Having a good KPI ensures the ease with which you can track your company’s performance. Some basic Key Performance Indicators can include increased sales, better employee turnover rate, etc.
4. Opportunities and difficulties
Board meetings aren’t always about the positive things that happen. Tracking the incidents that might hamper the growth of the company is equally necessary. Handling challenges the right way is like an art; knowing it can make everyone’s job easier.
Learning about the new opportunities is the best way to plan future goals for your organization. Identifying opportunities become important for growth, and it allows for you to focus on your strengths. Analyzing an opportunity is also important; it helps save important resources being spent on something that wasn’t worth it.
5. Deciding on the plan of action
When all the important issues are managed and strategies are decided, the board of directors has the responsibility to decide the plan of action that will guide all members to move forward.
All these plans of action are generally proposed, voted, and finalized in these meetings. It might cover optimization of marketing, sales processes, customer acquisition strategies, etc.
How to improve your board meetings?
Having the right software and equipment for your board meetings can make them more efficient and worth time spending. Lifesize is the perfect solution when you look for something to solve your board meeting dilemmas. With all solutions and flawless tools, it provides a formal meeting room that can easily connect everyone from every location.
1. Equipment
Lifesize Icon 700 provides you with a premium video conferencing solution for all your board meetings. A top-quality 4k camera with 20x zoom capabilities and touch-screen controls makes the equipment one of the most versatile ones available in the market. With the ability to be used with any platform like Google meets, zoom, etc., Lifesize offers you noise-reducing microphones with Opus audio codec.
2. Easy sharing of screen
Sharing a screen becomes the most essentially needed feature during a video call. Lifesize gives you exactly that, with the least downtime possible. Being wireless during a presentation has never been easier.
3. Software
The video conferencing software, that is, the Lifesize app, allows 500-way calling, screen recording, screen sharing, and everything that you could wish for in a video conferencing software for your perfect board meeting!
Best Board Meetings Software
Some of the meetings software that can alleviate and automate the meeting of your board members along with help you held virtual meetings to discuss your meeting agenda to optimize organizational productivity are-
1. Zoom
You can easily use Zoom for securely hosting a virtual board meeting. Zoom incorporates different mechanisms for securely hosting online events like board meetings for businesses, public companies, government, nonprofits, etc.
2. GoogleMeet
For participating in the board meeting via GoogleMeet, you just need to open Google Calendar and click on the meeting invite. Then you will see a popped-up box where you should click on “Join with GoogleMeet” for joining a video call and participating in a board meeting.
3. Diligent
One of the best tools to automate and channelize your board meeting. You may use it to manage your board meeting via its mobile app even when you are away from the office. It can let you take votes of participants, assign role-based permissions, access the member directory, collaborate, etc.
4. Boardable Board Portal
It offers centralized communication along with seamless integration, streamlined scheduling, and affordable pricing to conduct a board meeting successfully. It is also applicable in creating dynamic templates for sending private note annotation to members.
5. OnBoard Board Management Software
It is one of the first board intelligence platforms that ease down the outdated board procedures for empowering meetings to be more productive.
Conclusion!
A board meeting can make or break a company’s progress. For ideal growth, a company needs to be in touch with its growth prospects and keep developing new strategies and working on the older ones.
Best meeting tools want you to focus on the meeting and not on its workings because that will be taken care of by the perfect software and equipment itself. A company’s board meeting is very important to its operations, which is why the technology used for them should be at par.
We hope our list of tools will help you conduct your board meeting with ease and effectiveness.
How important do you consider these meetings in optimizing the performance and productivity of an organization?
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