Municipal decision-making optimized by digital meetings
Making decisions is never easy. Organizations don’t like to rush into things and thus we meet a lot. When it comes to government, decision-making follows a long and arduous path. Do you hold a position in a bureaucratic agency, for instance, in a municipality? Then you know better than anyone how many layers of hierarchy each proposal must go through. Eventually the proposals to the city council, often still on paper. And after that, the documents often need to be forwarded to committees and the board. This means an investment of an enormous amount of time and money in unnecessary photocopying. In the meantime, the current status of the documents is never really clear. By using digital meetings on a laptop or iPad, the governmental decision-making process becomes more transparent and efficient. Here are the benefits in a row:
1. Open and transparent
If an organization meets digitally, all of the documents are in the cloud. They are available to everyone who is authorized to see them. Then they can see precisely which policy the organization has planned and the current decision-making status is clear. Since the shared information is always correct and complete, you create an open, transparent organization and organizational culture.
2. Less work intensive
It costs a great deal to collect, copy, distribute and archive agenda materials: time and money. If you have digital meetings, the documents are waiting online: team members have the discretion to append and adjust documents. The days of copying are truly over. Action point lists and minutes can already be assembled during the meeting. That saves a lot of time and hassle!
3. Quicker, better and more efficient meetings
With digital meetings the inefficient shuffling through piles of paper are truly over. Gone also are the lame excuses of people who claim not to have the current version of the documents. All discussions, remarks, notes, action points, addenda and decisions are conveniently bundled together in an orderly fashion and attached to the appropriate agenda point. With this everyone is always informed, you come more quickly to the point and decisions are better grounded.
4. The flexible organization
Since all of the relevant documents are in the cloud, the appropriate parties always have access to them. At the office, during work, at home, in the evenings or weekends. After all, there are no more piles of papers to drag around anymore. Employees can decide for themselves where and when they want to read or initial the documents. If your organization works with flexible office space, then digital meetings are truly ideal!
5. Save costs and the environment
Digital meetings also mean the end of the print era. With significant savings on man-hours and costs on paper, printers and ink. And the environment will thank you as well.
A case study has been written about the experiences of the Dutch city of Utrecht with digital meetings. Are you curious about their experiences? You can download the case study here.
iBabs is a leader in paperless meetings and enables you to reduce these piles of documents to the thickness of your tablet. Thousands of organizations have been using this system for more than 15 years.
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