What is the Governance Cloud?
In the quest for good governance, companies have focused heavily on finding efficient, cost-effective solutions for risk and compliance issues. Even while the market has placed the importance of practicing good corporate governance in the limelight, governance solutions have lagged behind risk and compliance solutions.
Diligent designed the Governance Cloud with the processes of board directors, executives, general counsels and corporate secretaries in mind. No other company offers such a comprehensive array of software tools that are cohesive and connected to fully meet the needs of today's board directors.
The few governance solutions that are in the market today have largely been fragmented and disconnected from other processes. Board directors, general counsels and corporate secretaries are realizing the need for governance solutions that help them manage governance activities effectively and efficiently. Boards need products to help them streamline duties for compliance, regulation and governance while keeping all processes in a highly secure, confidential platform.
What Is the Governance Cloud?
The Governance Cloud, the only integrated enterprise governance management solution that enables organizations to achieve best-in-class governance, is an ecosystem of software tools that digitizes the various activities and tasks for the board of directors. As organizations grow more complex and regulations more stringent, the scope of governance responsibilities evolves. The Governance Cloud allows boards of directors to meet the demands in the boardroom and beyond with the ability to select the products they need that help them perform their best and work within their allotted budgets.
Board directors are obligated to perform a host of varied duties and responsibilities. Diligent developed a suite of governance products to help them fulfill their responsibilities accurately and efficiently. The Governance Cloud ecosystem of products includes:
Diligent Boards™
Governance leaders, executives and board directors rely on the industry-leading Diligent platform for the most secure and intuitive solution to board material management and collaboration. Diligent Boards™ is a board portal that electronically stores a board's agendas, documents, annotations and discussions within a secure board portal. Board secretaries and board chairs can use the portal to put together board books in minutes. The portal also has designated virtual rooms for committee work. Administrators of the portal can designate permissions for user to access various areas of the portal to avoid unnecessary problems with confidentiality. The 'Manage Meetings' feature consolidates board directors' contacts, calendars and the logistics of meetings. The program is a secure and intuitive solution for managing board materials and collaboration.
Voting & Resolutions
Board directors wanted an electronic tool that would assist them in voting. The "Voting & Resolutions" feature lets board and committee members use a built-in voting feature to make decisions on resolutions and action items, with results viewable in real time.
D&O Questionnaires
Manual directors' and officers' (D&O) questionnaires are laborious and time-consuming. Diligent's D&O program makes it easy and convenient for board directors to report online. An easier process ensures that directors will follow through in completing the D&O questionnaire in a timely manner. This program allows for several different questions types, including true/false, multiple choice or open-ended, so boards can customize their questionnaires according to their needs. This program also gives directors the ability to save their work and complete the D&O at a later time if they can't complete it in one sitting. The D&O Questionnaire program makes work easier for administrators as well. They can duplicate questionnaires and modify them for use in subsequent years. They can easily see who has submitted their questionnaires, and print or export them as needed.
Diligent Messenger
Diligent Messenger is an electronic communication tool that lets board directors connect with individual directors, the whole board or a specific committee. Messages are time-stamped and can be retrieved on cell phones and tablets. Directors can set up the program to send them notifications on various devices when they have an incoming message. This tool allows directors to connect with each other easily before, during or after meetings. They can also send and download attachments using the software. Sent a message too hastily? No problem. Diligent Messenger lets you retract messages sent in error. The Messenger tool also blocks copying and won't let directors add outside contacts, which means that private board conversations stay private.
Diligent Evaluations
Board and director evaluations are a vital component to good corporate governance. Diligent has designed a tool to assist the board in evaluating itself. This tool makes easy work of board evaluations by allowing the administrator to use various types of questions to get to the information boards' need to make decisions about composition, culture, function, talents and more. This tool allows the administrator to set deadlines and monitor completion. The evaluation software has an automatic averages reporting feature and can create custom reports using an export wizard. Board directors worldwide appreciate the efficiency and functionality of this software program.
Entity Management
Diligent's entity management platform, brought to you by Blueprint OneWorld, provides a single source of truth for all entity-related information with built in processes and workflows that assist with reviewing and measuring the compliance of data.
Insights
Diligent Insights streamlines the multitude of content directors receive by offering curated and personalized video and article collections exclusively for board directors, tailored to each individual's interests.
Diligent Minutes
Diligent Minutes is a minute-taking and action management workflow tool that makes minute-taking more efficient, via powerful features that are integrated directly into the Diligent Boards'Ѣ platform and workflow. The secretary only needs to take brief notes and the software creates a professional-looking record of the minutes. The secretary can attach files to the minutes and assign tasks during the meeting, making the task of creating meeting minutes faster and more efficient.
Why Diligent?
As the leader in governance solutions, Diligent keeps its pulse on current governance issues. Product developers are already working on the next generation of products and enhancements. Diligent will continue to fund a robust research and development team to continue meeting the needs of the board directors of today and of the future.
