By Dilitrust MEA
Digitalisation is an unquestionable strategic asset for board members in their duty of due diligence, allowing them to be more efficient individually while also enhancing the performance of their organisation.
By leveraging digital technology, business leaders can also engage with employees better, seek feedback more regularly, practice participative decision-making and collaborate their ideas and information. Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD), a UAE banking and financial services corporation, began its digital transformation with the objectives of efficiency, data security and sustainable development. CBD, which offers a range of retail and commercial banking products and specialises in trade finance, payments and cash management, treasury services, capital solutions and financial advisory, also wanted better information management for its board meetings and secure communication between board members.
Striving to be innovative, Commercial Bank of Dubai opted to shift its established board of directors and committees to paperless board meetings. It chose to adopt a digital tool aimed at increasing the efficiency of board members and their governance. The objective of this transition was to streamline governance and communication processes already in place.
Information security is understandably a top priority for the organisation, so its selection process had to be very rigorous to ensure the highest level of security and confidentiality of its sensitive data.
How DiliTrust met these challenges
CBD sought a solution aimed at enhancing the efficiency of board members and governance processes, while also allowing a highly secure manner of storing information handled by the board. The choice to use the DiliTrust Exec paperless board portal was made without hesitation, due to the many benefits that the solution provides.
DiliTrust Exec optimises meetings organisation for board members and corporate secretary. It offers board members a new way of collaborating; facilitating the transmission of information or board documents with a simple click to enhance the productivity of board and committee meetings. Users have instant and secure access to the board portal on computers, laptops, tablets or mobile (iOS, Android or Windows) to consult agendas and find any board documents for a more efficient decision-making process.
The main factors that supported this decision were how easy it is to use, the simple integration of the platform, its world-class certified level of security and, most importantly, the proximity of the personalised services offered to the application’s administrators and users.
Indeed, the implementation of the DiliTrust Exec solution includes a free, personalised and ongoing training programme, as well as technical assistance, 24 hours a day, seven days a week – all supported by a team based in Dubai. As a result of the pandemic, real-time board portal communication is essential and this type of solution clearly demonstrates that boards and committees are aware of the integration of good governance practices.
Success for CBD
The Dubai Paperless Strategy 2021 aims to transform government services and operations into 100 per cent digital and to cut paper consumption by more than a billion sheets of paper across the Dubai Government each year. The reduction of paper consumption was key to CBD’s decision to use a board portal.
Souhayel Tayeb, Chief Legal and Governance Officer at Commercial Bank of Dubai, says: “We are now avoiding the logistical nightmare of four kilos of paper boxes. The paper used in our meetings were several hundreds of pages long and were starting to represent a real challenge for our members when it came to finding a personal note or sharing information with other members”.
“The deployment of the service was fast, thanks to DiliTrust’s local Customer Success team, and we saw the benefits that it would bring to our board and committee meetings and our means of collaborating right away”.
In the context of my double-hatted position (Chief Legal Officer and Board Secretary), this solution saves me a lot of valuable time and the process of board organisation is therefore much better facilitated. Our chairman strongly supported the use of the paperless board portal.”
ABOUT THE DILITRUST GROUP
As a leading solutions provider for more than 25 years, DiliTrust offers a full range of software and services designed to improve operational processes around good corporate governance, including the secure, transparent and collaborative sharing of sensitive and confidential data.
DiliTrust serves more than 1,300 customers in 49 countries, providing best-of-breed solutions that help organisations meet their regulatory requirements and improve their operational efficiencies while helping to mitigate risks. Headquartered in Paris, DiliTrust offices are also located in Canada, Italy, Spain and in the United Arab Emirates where it covers the Middle East and Africa regions. Today, all solutions combined, DiliTrust provides services to more than 85 per cent to the French CAC 40 listed companies and several companies listed in the top 50 Forbes Middle East.
