Board meetings are an essential aspect of the corporate world. They give the top management of the company an opportunity to get together and discuss the company’s progress, financial developments or business plan. The point of the meeting is to help the company’s board to determine the current state of the affairs as well as to define possible projects for the foreseeable future. This article covers the purpose and structure of board meetings and provides useful information on virtual meetings and board meeting software.
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A board meeting is a regular formal gathering of a board of directors in order to discuss strategic matters of a company. This includes the corporate policies and issues, company performance reports and future endeavors. By covering all these points, the top management can evaluate and keep track of the company’s progress.
A board meeting is usually called at regular intervals during a financial year in order to keep up with the developments in all the company’s departments. To set up this meeting, one needs to notify attendees on the details of the event. The key participants are the members of the board in charge elected by the corporate stakeholders - directors. The directors usually have the power to take all major actions and decisions for the company.
Every attendee has a role in the meeting - there is a chairperson, speakers, a secretary and sometimes guests who don’t participate in the discussions. The chairperson makes sure that the meeting is planned and conducted effectively; with their guidance, the attendees deal with matters in an orderly and efficient manner. The speakers are key participants; they present their findings to the group and participate in all discussions on the agenda. The secretary keeps the record of all the meetings decisions.
Record of a previous meeting. Before proceeding with the new orders of business, the board typically reviews the minutes of the previous meeting to track the progress of implementation of the decisions and to highlight the areas of improvement.
Performance reports. The members of the board review key performance indicators such as customer satisfaction, sales, costs and revenues for a given financial period, as well as ongoing research and development. In this way, the board members can find out what has changed over time and whether the company has benefited from these changes.
Future strategies. The attendees share their ideas of the future projects and policies and discuss possible steps towards their implementation. They provide arguments for or against the new initiatives as well as search for common ground on the matters at hand.
Vote. When all the parties have presented their views and the discussion is over, the chairman puts all the motions on the agenda to a vote. The outcome of the vote determines the decisions made by the board meeting. This can include changing the company’s articles, authorizing certain transactions or ratifying a former decision made by a director.
The modern technologies have drastically changed how business meetings are held all over the world. As video conferencing gains popularity, it is now possible to join the meeting remotely, even if the attendee is travelling. To move corporate meetings online, it is essential to choose appropriate board meeting software that meets all user needs and provides collaboration tools and features. Modern software for video conferencing in many ways simplifies the process of scheduling and holding a meeting. As the video conferencing technology is available for PCs, smartphones, tablets, browsers and even TVs, meeting participants can join the board meetings even if they are far from the meeting room.
TrueConf offers board meeting software with a number of useful features and collaboration tools to ensure that your board meetings run smoothly:
Simplified Conference Scheduling. Schedule a conference and the invite with date, time and subject of the meeting will be sent automatically to the selected participants.
4K Resolution. High definition video calls simulate a real-life conversation and provide great visual contact with mimics, emotions and gestures clearly visible. Thanks to 4K video conferencing, video meetings will look great on a large TV or video wall in your conference room.
Screen Sharing and Remote Desktop Control. During virtual board meetings it is crucial to view and discuss content, such as graphs, charts, diagrams, slideshows, reports and such. TrueConf enables participants to share their desktop, co-browse content, view and share slides, boosting meeting experience.
100% Compatibility with Conference Room Software. TrueConf software supports any conference room systems via SIP/H.323 protocols, so you can make full use of your existing conference room endpoints: call and invite your conference room system to the meetings as a regular attendee.
Video Conference Recording. Record the conference to view the key points of the conference afterwards and make sure you didn’t miss any important information. You can also send the recording to the board members who were unable to participate in the meeting.
Remote Conference Management. Board meetings can often involve multiple speakers, so it is important to make sure that everyone can see and hear each other clearly. With TrueConf, you can assign a moderator who will be able to mute and unmute remote cameras and mics, drop participants from the meeting, assign speakers etc. directly from the video layout. Besides, the video layouts are customizable, and the moderator can select the most appropriate option for all the attendees or for each of them separately.
Reactions and Polling. Launch the poll during your meeting and gather responses from your attendees during video meetings.
