Board of Directors - Case Study

Information flow for a Board of Directors is document intensive and deadline driven. In this case study, a company uses Lockbox to streamline and secure interactions between board members.

Emersion

Emersion provides business-to-business software as a service (SaaS) billing solutions – particularly to the telecommunications and IT managed service provider industries. It is an organisation committed to the ongoing development of pioneering and leading technologies and has appointed a formal board of directors to help guide the business.

Challenge

Documents commonly shared amongst Emersion’s geographically dispersed board members range from regular board packs to confidential briefing documents, all of which come in a variety of file sizes and are sent with irregular frequency.

Emersion required a communication system with considerable functionality and security, but one that was not technically complex or daunting for busy board members and potential investors. Above all, it needed to be secure, reliable and accessible from anywhere.

“Our executives and board members work from a range of locations, which can make it difficult to physically share highly sensitive information. For example, during the capital raising process we need informed and timely responses from a wide range of vested parties.”

Solution

Lockbox is Emersion’s private workspace that allows real-time online collaboration and private information sharing among the board members.

Emersion chose to use Lockbox as a central information repository to provide board members with streamlined, private access to documents and to allow for efficient communication via a secure web portal.

Paul Dundas, Managing Director, controls who has access to all information in the workspace, “Our board members are at various locations and Lockbox is the perfect system to share all the detailed executive level documents such as financial projections, profit and loss reports and strategic plans. We can see who has viewed each document because we need to be sure that our board members have actually received the information unlike regular email – which we have found to be unreliable.”

Lockbox Benefits

The time savings alone make Lockbox a valuable asset, add in the fact that there is virtually no IT expenditure in hardware or staff makes it the perfect solution. Emersion uses Lockbox to foster collaboration among partners, expediting decision making and simplifying information flow.

“With Lockbox, we can reliably distribute large files securely, be assured they are received, and facilitate instant feedback. Lockbox helps our board function more efficiently and cohesively by making information readily accessible from anywhere in the world. A major benefit of the Lockbox solution is that it allows us to keep track of who has read or uploaded a document, and when” says Dundas.

“I get email notifications when someone uploads information and conversely, it confirms when someone has downloaded a file. I love that the information is pushed to me and I don’t have to check. Every files activity is tracked, recorded and available for me to access and refer to at any time.”