Digital and hybrid AGMs expand your organization’s ability to connect with stakeholders, alongside delivering on key corporate governance objectives. That’s why it’s so important to invest in technology on whom you can rely. Explore our top tips on what to look for when selecting a technology provider.

When investing in a shareholder or member engagement platform for your upcoming AGM, it’s important to ask the right questions. Can your attendees be securely verified onto the platform? Does the platform meet key corporate governance objectives? Is the platform robust enough to manage hundreds of simultaneous authenticated log-ins? Similarly, getting answers to more qualitative questions are important: do I trust the team I’m working with? Do they have the expertise to handle such a complex meeting? Does my custom feel valued?

Capturing the answers to those questions can be daunting, and when there are lots of options, it can be tempting to go for something that feels comfortable and familiar. Whilst many of us have all built up familiarity with some video meeting providers during lockdown, off-the-shelf solutions can’t always answer those all-important questions to facilitate a compliant, secure and seamless AGM.

If your organization is in the process of weighing up the options between an off-the-shelf solution and a dedicated meeting provider like Lumi, here’s a few things to consider before you make your decision.

Unparalleled Experience

At such a critical moment for your organization, being able to lean on the experience and expertise of your meeting provider is essential. Our expert technicians are equipped to ensure the seamless running of your meeting, guarding against audio or visual latency, that may result in the meeting buffering or lagging, amongst other potential AV challenges.

Similarly, our teams provide an end-to-end consultative function, to ensure the heavy lifting is reduced for your corporate secretary and investor relations teams. Because of our world-class knowledge, our clients return to our platform time and time again, and recommend us to their networks.

“The support from Lumi was great. Lumi’s head of Business Development, Ben Riley, was always there to answer any questions that we had and he was really easy to work with. We were very happy with the whole experience.”  - Royal Society of Chemistry

“Thank you ever so much for all of your help throughout this entire process. You have truly held our hand and made us feel comfortable all along, taking us through to our first successful hybrid event. We felt as though we were your only client even though we know how busy you are and the Lumi platform worked smoothly as advised!” – Smith and Nephew

Lumi’s locally-based teams have a wealth of experience delivering virtual and hybrid meetings; our existing client base praise the work of our colleagues, and are particularly impressed by our consultative approach to AGM delivery.

World-class technology and meeting platform

When searching for a meeting provider, make sure you look for a platform that can enable:

  • Authenticated access
  • Split screen functionality
  • Broadcast
  • In-meeting Q&A
  • Wide range of reporting options for accountability and transparency
  • Dedicated technology delivery team

For many global organizations, it’s important to invest in a platform capable of authenticating large numbers of shareholder into the meeting simultaneously, without fear of a platform glitch, shut-down or security breach. When it comes to broadcast and Q&A features, they should also be robust; secure enough to prevent infiltration, but user-friendly and intuitive to enable open discourse between board and shareholder.

As we move further from the epicentre of COVID-19 restrictions, companies must be mindful of the necessity to broaden participation amongst shareholders. As noted in guidance from the Corporate Governance Institute: ‘if there is no specific legislation in force at the time of the meeting, such as national lockdown restrictions, companies will not be able to preclude shareholder attendance either entirely or by seeking to impose a limit on the number permitted to attend.’

As a result of guidance that increasingly invites companies to integrate a digital element into a physical meeting, you may wish to look for a platform provider who has experience of managing hybrid meeting environments, to provide your organization with full flexibility. Lumi has delivered hybrid and virtual meetings for over 25 years, and our technicians are comfortable managing both the physical and digital elements simultaneously.

Resolutions and Voting

Whilst off-the-shelf platforms offer generic opportunities for engagement, in the form of emoji responses that indicate sentiment and unfiltered Q&A, these functions don’t facilitate legal voting, or provide time for your board to thoughtfully respond to questions without disrupting the flow of the meeting.

To ensure your meeting can get to the business of the AGM, rather than fluff around the edges, invest in a platform that offers legal voting to help your organization move forward with key resolutions. In addition, our secure Q&A tool, alongside our telephony integration, means that shareholders can ask questions verbally, and be answered without the flow of the meeting being impacted.

When it comes to voting, thanks to our secure authentication protocols, only shareholders that are legally able to vote on important resolutions are admitted to the vote. In addition, votes are calculated against the shareholder or member register, ensuring that votes aren’t counted one plus one, but reflect the share value weightings of your individual investors.

Lumi is the leading digital platform facilitating in-room, hybrid and virtual AGMs for the world’s largest corporations and membership organizations. It is the only platform that digitizes the entire lifecycle of an AGM in a single solution that enables sophisticated meeting facilitation before, during and after the live meeting.