“It used to take a long time to manually collate board packs, but now it only takes a couple of hours.” ~ Jenny Watson, PA to General Counsel
The Challenge
Whitbread PLC, the UK’s largest hospitality company, had been using an internal web-based system to download board papers. Having used the system for years they were keen to upgrade and board members, familiar with the benefits of board portals from other roles, wanted to bring best practice to the FTSE 100 company.
The Solution
After considering numerous tools, Whitbread chose to implement Read and Manage, Board Intelligence’s board portal and pack production system. They found the product ticked all their boxes:
- Easy for directors to use and switch to digital board packs;
- App-based, giving the flexibility to read papers on the go;
- Simple collation and efficient distribution of packs; and
- Industry leading security.
“Board Intelligence’s product met all of our requirements.” ~ Jenny Watson, PA to General Counsel
The Outcome
Whitbread received only positive feedback from the board. Directors no longer need to wait for packs to be couriered — they can access them via the App as soon as they’re published, particularly benefiting the non-executives overseas. And the Secretariat Team have reported a much more efficient pack collation process, saving them considerable time.
Given Read ’s cutting edge security, Whitbread have also started to use the portal as a secure repository to store confidential information, rather than sending market sensitive items over email.
The regular product updates have been invaluable, in particular the enhancement of the print-friendly functionality. And Whitbread praised the proficiency of the Board Intelligence Support Team and their prompt response to queries.
“We always received a very quick response from the Support Team, which greatly assisted tight turnarounds.” ~ Jenny Watson, PA to General Counsel
The success of the roll-out has led to Read and Manage being used more widely within Whitbread. The Executive Committee, Costa and the Costa Foundation now enjoy the benefits of the tool and a much improved board reporting process.
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