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How MPS revolutionised their board reporting with Board Intelligence

Written by Emma Priestley | 02 June 2023
 
 

MPS — enabling better insight through the discipline of focus

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) are the world’s leading member-owned, not-for-profit protection organisation for healthcare professionals, supporting 300,000 members globally.

Frustrated by their previous board portal, MPS’s CEO, Simon Kayll, wanted a solution that made it more efficient to share board packs, but also that improved the information they contained and drove a more strategic conversation in the boardroom.

What were MPS looking to improve with their board reporting?

Lengthy board reports where the key messages were buried

After attending a Board Intelligence seminar on best practice CEO Reports, Simon contacted our team who reviewed MPS’s board pack, benchmarking it against peers in their sector. With authors unsure about what to include or exclude, reports ran to tens of pages long which made it difficult for the board to digest the key points and focus on what matters.

“Board packs were getting out of control and our board was struggling with the amount of information presented.”

~ David Wheeler, General Counsel, MPS

Packed agendas, and a painful process for putting them together

Planning agendas for the annual cycle and making the inevitable last-minute changes was taking too much time — time that MPS wanted to spend on improving the quality of these agendas.

A board portal that did just the basics

Preparing and sharing board packs through MPS’s previous board portal was manual and time-consuming. Directors were also getting frustrated when they needed to access current or previous packs, as the technology was slow, and the search function basic.

What’s been the outcome of partnering with Board Intelligence?

Using Board Intelligence has led to smarter, shorter board packs, better prepared meetings, and more strategic, focused discussions.

A board portal that drives better ways of working

MPS switched to our board portal and can now build and share packs in minutes, add and remove users in a few clicks, and automate notifications for deadlines and pack updates.

“The system is easy to navigate, amendments can be easily updated without the need for reformatting. Briefs can be sent swiftly and uploading papers is quick and easy to do. The software is much more intuitive than our previous portal.”

~ Nicola Driver, Executive Assistant to the CEO, MPS

And the powerful search for keywords within and across board packs, as well as the ability to share notes and collaborate on packs ahead of the board meeting, has proved popular amongst directors.

“Board Intelligence is a huge improvement to the software MPS was using beforehand.”

~ Simon Kayll, CEO, MPS

A more balanced agenda using a unique solution on the market

With Board Intelligence’s Agenda Planner, MPS can see — and manage — their forward calendar of agendas in one place, without having to flip between tabs, documents, and files. The company secretariat can easily make changes with drag-and-drop, with agenda timings automatically updated. And they can tag agenda items by stakeholder group and get instant analytics of where the board and committees are spending their time — a key feature to demonstrate Section 172 compliance for the annual report.

“Board Intelligence has brought a discipline to paper writing, distribution, and agenda setting.”

~ David Wheeler, General Counsel, MPS

Sharper and more insightful papers

A combination of report writing training, best-practice templates, and paper scoring has given MPS’s report writers the tools and skills to author papers that contain only the critical information — and in a consistent structure — leading to smarter, shorter board packs, better-prepared meetings, and more strategic, focused discussions.

“The clarity of the papers means that we reach decisions quickly.”

~ Simon Kayll, CEO, MPS