An Administrator's Perspective

"Before using Diligent Boardbooks, we gathered documents from various areas, then copied and placed our materials in a 3-ring binder. It was a painful process. And the worst part was hand-numbering the pages. Since we would get reports from all different areas, we would number them with page-number labels after we put them in the proper order. This process took forever! Then, if we had a last-minute change such as adding an additional report, it was very hard to renumber everything.

"The best part of the Boardbooks system is the accuracy and shortened preparation time. What used to take three of us 40 hours to put together can now be done in less than 5 hours.

"Another great benefit is being able to provide our Directors with all the confidential material in a more timely manner on a secure site for their review before the meetings.

"Initially, among the Directors, there was a little apprehension from those who were not familiar with computers at all. But, Boardbooks is so intuitive, they find it very easy to use and like having their previous meeting information at their fingertips.

"Boardbooks has also improved the way our meetings are run. Our Directors find it easier to prepare for meetings since they can now review all of the information ahead of time. This allows them to engage in more conversations and have questions ready to ask."

— Jessica Donahue
Assistant Corporate Secretary
NBT Bancorp

NBT's Experience Switching From Paper

As Jessica described above, when Diligent first met with the administrative staff at NBT, they were providing the Directors and Executives traditional paper books for all board and committee meetings (approximately 60 meetings per year).

It was an arduous task—gathering the documents, copying the documents, manually collating, hand numbering pages, assembling the books, and frequently tearing them apart when there were last-minute changes—along with the last-minute frenzy of coordinating shipments to the Directors at multiple addresses.

The switch to Diligent Boardbooks saved them enormous amounts of time, and made updates and changes to the board materials a breeze.

Next... Diligent Boardbooks

NBT Bancorp is a financial services holding company with roots firmly planted in community banking. In recent years, they've grown dramatically and expanded their products and services to develop the company into a complete provider of financial services with 124 banking locations.

They currently use Diligent Boardbooks to support 3 primary boards and 11 committees (approximately 60 meetings per year).

Next, read about A Chairman's Perspective on Boardbooks featuring Diligent client Daryl Forsythe, Chairman.

"There would be a revolt if we attempted to take this invaluable tool away from the directors..."