Why should you invest in a meeting management solution?
This article explores why leaders should invest in meeting management, giving a simple, rational review of the benefits, to help you decide whether Sherpany is the right solution for you.
The world of Software as a Service (SaaS) has exploded in the last decade. In fact, five years ago companies used an average of 16 cloud applications — now that number is up to 110.1 Many are relying on multiple pieces of software for different tasks — when instead it makes more sense to consolidate and rely on fewer.
However, investing in any software for your business is a big decision. Undergoing any organisational change can be challenging, and there is often an adoption curve for each ‘new and shiny’ tool internally, which again represents costs — both human and economic.
Thankfully, when choosing the right tools, the benefits by far outweigh any challenges. For example, the efficiencies that are to be gained by fully embracing the potential of your meetings — through Sherpany — represent enormous value for your organisation, the full extent of which might surprise you.
This article explores why leaders should invest in Sherpany, giving a simple, rational explanation of the benefits, to help you decide whether it is the right solution for you.
What is Sherpany?
Sherpany is a meeting management solution provider and has been a pioneer in establishing meeting management as a discipline in the corporate context.
Sherpany supports the entire meeting process — helping organisations to manage, end-to-end, the entire sequence from agenda creation to distributing meeting minutes and collecting meeting feedback. Our centralised, streamlined, and tailored approach to formal meetings is revolutionary as, until now, meetings have been a blindspot for many leaders and meetings problems are common. In fact, according to one of the eminent voices in the field of meeting science, Prof. Steven G. Rogelberg, “despite the prevalence of meetings today, 75% of those surveyed had received no formal training in how to conduct or participate in them.”2
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What are the benefits of using Sherpany?
Let's explore the benefits of Sherpany in three key areas:
1. Economic benefits
Meetings represent a huge investment of time, and therefore money. In the United States alone, as much as $399bn is wasted in unproductive meetings.3 Having people who don't need to be present in meetings not only erodes good will on their part, but also costs the organisation in terms of wasted salary cost.
What's more, meetings that don't achieve their objectives — or don't even have an objective in the first place — further squander precious resources which could be directed in support of real, tangible outcomes, and generating ROI. Finally, meetings (or discussions within meetings) that run on too long or diverge from the chosen topic also waste time.
Sherpany is built on a decade of experience and the leading research in the field of meeting science, incorporating features that drive both efficiency and positive human behaviours. Our solution addresses these challenges in a number of ways, ensuring that:
- Meetings have a clear, communicated purpose,
- Participants have clear roles and responsibilities in each meetings,
- Meetings are broken down into discrete agenda items with an individual objective, a leader, and an allocated time,
- Meetings are outcome-oriented, meaning that discussions remain focussed on what is trying to be achieved,
- Meetings make use of dynamic participation, so that individuals only join for the agenda items to which their expertise or contribution is required, and
- Meeting feedback is built into the overall process, helping you to continuously improve meetings based on the experience of your teams.
In doing so, Sherpany reduces the costs of wasted meeting time, as only the necessary people are involved in focussed discussions which have clear, tangible outcomes and are in pursuit of organisational objectives. Sacha Gerber, CFO of Calida Group, explains how Sherpany does this, stating that “the constant exchange with other members during meeting preparation is very important as it ensures we already know the issues. This alignment creates space for in-depth discussions during the meeting itself.”
Sherpany also represents economic benefits in the form of swifted decision making; in fact, Prof. Dr. Hanns-Peter Knaebel, former CEO of Rochling Group, confirmed this: “[with Sherpany] decisions can be made much quicker and do not have to be postponed for the lack of access to information.”
Therefore, by rethinking meeting processes and adopting a stance of outcome-orientation, meetings can be transformed into vehicles for maximum velocity, allowing you to respond swiftly to different external situations.
Finally, Sherpany’s ease of use means that there is little trouble driving adoption — which is often one of the biggest costs of implementing a new SaaS tool. Rainer Baumann, COO of Migros in Switzerland, went so far as to say “For me, as a digital native, [Sherpany] is almost too easy [to use].”
Rethinking meeting processes and adopting a stance of outcome-orientation, meetings can be transformed into vehicles for maximum velocity.
2. Security and compliance benefits
Security is a growing concern among leaders around the world. After all, with the rate of change in technology, data has become the most valuable asset globally, and the need to keep information safe is therefore greater than ever. This is supported by forecasts that the global information security market is likely to exceed $200bn per year by the end of 2022.4
Owing to their highly social nature, meetings are inherently exposed to many ‘human’ aspects of corporate life. This is troubling from a security perspective, as 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error.5 What’s more, formal meetings often rely on sensitive information — for example, financial forecasts for a board meeting — and if these are to fall into the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic for any organisation.
Sherpany is the equivalent to a bank vault when it comes to the security and integrity of meeting information. By offering an end-to-end encrypted, centralised repository for meeting information to be stored, with a geo-redundant set-up, and Swiss-based, independent servers, Sherpany removes the opportunity for many of the human errors that can be so costly. For example, by using Sherpany to manage the entire meeting process, organisations no longer have to rely on systems such as email to share meeting information — which are a data security weak spot.
In addition to this, Sherpany’s long list of industry-standard security certifications give leaders the peace of mind that their most valuable assets are in safe hands, and with our regular, independent security audits and penetration testing, we never take our security standards for granted.
3. Cultural benefits
It is no secret that bad meetings create toxicity which is hard to overcome, destroying productivity, innovation, and employee wellbeing. Therefore, by enabling your organisation to have 'good meetings' instead, Sherpany has a significant impact on preserving the culture of your organisation — especially as we settle into hybrid ways of working, when culture is perhaps at its most fragile.
According to our CEO, Tobias Häckermann, in this 'new normal' meetings are "where your company culture lives, grows, or dies". And our solution is designed with this in mind; Sherpany aims to support the positive human behaviours that make meetings great, and reduce — or even eliminate — the aspects of meetings which hamper productivity and negatively affect meeting culture.
Sherpany also enables you to get the truth on your meetings by building feedback into the meeting process. This enables your people to give a true, honest, and anonymous account of each meeting experience, and in the aggregate allows you to see how well your organisation is performing with respective meetings. This can be especially powerful, as early corrective action can be the deciding factor in preserving your meeting culture.
Invest in your meetings — sooner rather than later
Meetings are critical, and have been overlooked for too long. An investment in Sherpany therefore represents an investment in the future of your organisation, and is a gateway to a reservoir of untapped opportunity.
Therefore, by taking decisive action and adopting a purpose-built meeting management solution, you are able to unlock the full potential of your meetings and achieve myriad, wide-reaching benefits for your organisation. The question shouldn't be "should you invest in Sherpany?", it should instead be "why haven't you already?"
1 'Average number of software as a service (SaaS) applications used by organizations worldwide from 2015 to 2021', L. S. Vailshery, Statista, 2022.
2 'Why Your Meetings Stink – and What to Do About It', Steven G. Rogelberg, HBR, 2019.
3'The state of meetings report: Consequences of poorly organised meetings', Doodle, 2019.
4 'Cyber Security Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report', Grandview Research, 2022.
5 '134 Cybersecurity Statistics and Trends for 2021', R. Sobers, Varonis, 2021.
