Virtual AGMs In India With Eventify In 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic is not showing any chance abating worldwide. Apart from claiming lives by the thousands every day, the pandemic is changing the face of the corporate world in India. A classic case in point regarding this would be the exponential increase in the interest in virtual AGM platforms among leading corporate houses across the country. With the chances of in-person board meetings happening in the foreseeable future being minimal – and social distancing being the new norm, companies are increasingly opting for the next-best alternative – virtual AGMs.
While a virtual AGM is a ‘safe’ option, with discussions happening from the homes/offices of shareholders, directors and CEOs – the technical aspect of such online meetings can be challenging. The need of the hour is for stable, secure and fully customisable AGM platforms, with support for videoconferencing, live streaming & broadcasting, and of course, easy shareholder participation options. In such a scenario, Eventify has come up as one of the very best virtual AGM platforms in India.
How Eventify Supports Virtual AGMs?
Eventify is an end-to-end event management platform, with full support for all types of in-person (physical) events, virtual events and hybrid events. Given the coronavirus situation worldwide, we have steadily increased the platform’s usability for fully virtual events in the last couple of months. At present, our platform offers full integration with most leading videoconferencing tools – like Zoom, Webinarjam, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams and others, along with the most popular broadcasting/streaming software (YouTube Live, Facebook Live, etc.)
For virtual AGMs in India, we plan to offer a seamless blend of videoconferencing integration, and live broadcasting support. All authorised stakeholders – directors, CEOs, moderators and shareholders – will be able to securely log in to the portal, participate in the sessions, use the Live Q&A feature, do e-voting (with additional security), and use other features of the platform. The focus is on allowing companies conduct their meetings with ease, while maintaining social distancing, and not having to worry about security and connectivity issues.
Working With Leading Videoconferencing Platforms For AGMs
For conducting virtual AGMs in a proper, stable manner, Indian companies need to use a reliable videoconferencing software. Now, there are several such tools – and the preferences vary from one company to another. To accommodate the choices of all corporate houses, Eventify offers seamless integration capabilities with Zoom, Webinarjam, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex. A company can select any of these software, set up their AGM session(s) on it, and then integrate the live sessions on the Eventify platform.
Easy Broadcasting Options Through Multiple Channels
On the Eventify platform, it is also possible to broadcast the live AGM session(s). Shareholders and other participants can log in with their unique credentials, and view these live broadcast sessions with ease. It is possible to join a virtual AGM hosted on Eventify through a mobile app, or through a web browser. This decision depends on the convenience of the final participants.
For these virtual AGM broadcasting needs, Eventify offers both Zoom+YouTube Live and Zoom+Facebook Live integrations. The process is very simple: the company needs to set up a Zoom meeting URL, start the meeting, go live on either YouTube or Facebook, and insert THIS URL on the platform. The lag is minimal (~10-12 seconds).
Live Q&A Functionality For Online AGMs
Virtual AGMs are nothing like conventional, in-person AGMs. In particular, the face-to-face discussion element – very important for any board meeting – will be missing. To make up for this, and to make the online AGMs in India as participative as possible. While watching the AGM session, a shareholder can ask a question to the panelists/speakers anytime. These questions can be moderated, and will be answered real-time during the session.
The live Q&A feature for virtual AGMs is available both on the app and the web.
Shareholder Participation In Virtual AGMs
At regular company AGMs, select shareholders are given the opportunity to speak. Also, a speaker generally talks for some time, and then can point to another speaker/shareholder. To incorporate this, Eventify has multiple live video URL options. From Zoom, a moderator can easily mute/unmute the different video screens (speakers) – so as to maintain decorum and proper flow of the meeting.
In order to implement this feature, all that the companies need to do is select the shareholders with ‘speaking rights’ in advance, and add them as ‘Speakers’ on our virtual AGM platform. Once that is done, emails/SMSes/push notifications can be sent to these speakers with the meeting URL. They can simply click to join.
The Security Factor
While important for all online conferences and webinars, security assumes the most importance for virtual AGMs in India. We have several measures in place for ensuring end-to-end security for these shareholder meetings. For starters, users will be able to join the AGM session(s) only once, and from one device at a time only. If someone gets the URL and tries to use it to join the AGM, an error message will be generated.
Typically, company directors and AGM organisers also want to keep track of the times when shareholders join/leave a meeting, and how long they stay in the live session. Through the Eventify platform, the live AGM video sessions can be timestamped (non-editable) – so that these records can be maintained. What’s more, the shareholder records captured through our platform are fully tamper-proof, ensuring that company directors have one less thing to worry about.
More Features For Virtual AGMs In India
If companies are willing to let its shareholders virtually interact with each other, that can be facilitated through the tag-based networking and live chat feature on the Eventify platform. There is a Live Poll feature as well (can be set up as optional or mandatory). E-voting is one of the most important elements of any AGM – and this can be integrated through a separate secure login portal on our platform.
Companies can also upload and share pre-recorded videos, documents (in PDF, DOC, PPT, and other formats), news & announcements, and any other online resources for the perusal of the AGM participants. Surveys can also be conducted through the live polls.
Eventify is proud to offer a one-stop solution for hosting virtual AGMs in India and integrating videoconferencing & live broadcasting solutions. If you have any further query, please send us an email to [email protected].
This post was originally published here.