The role of education is to reflect innovation in various fields and advance the subjects. Digital innovation is changing the different professions. The board members from the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors joined hands with chartered corporate secretaries of Sri Lanka to offer a webinar on company secretaries and digital innovations. The speech of the experts is in this blog. The speeches of SLID board secretaries and keynote speakers unleash the operations of company secretaries in the digital age.
S.Sudharshan, ICCSL deputy president speech:
S.Sudarshan mentioned the job of company secretaries helps to spend more time on research, strategy, problem-solving, coordination, and branding. Company secretaries take care of the administrative activities that end with better time management and execution processes. Corporate governance challenges are paired with digitalisation to increase opportunities and quality standards.
Keynote speaker Nisha Najumudeen’s speech:
Nisha Najumudeeen said that the influence of digitalisation was rapid in 1980. She began her career during this crucial period. Automation helped her to perform their duties with ease. She further mentioned that the traditional system and modern systems changed the way of work. She said that meetings and forms through digital media are a great relief from the laborious work. She mentioned that the eROC portal and automation of share trading with CDS help the companies to perform well in the competitive market. She further comments that the stakeholders need to take it as an advantage and should not feel as unsettled with the new processes.
Sunil Wijesinha speech:
SuniWijesinha mentioned in his speech that company secretaries move the company with these tools. These secretaries encourage, initiate and train the members and conduct the board meeting with the desired accuracy. The board meetings are the references if the government changes and questions arise regarding the scrutiny. It should be unambiguous and accurate.
NaomalGoonawardena speech:
NaomalGoonawardena mentioned the importance of having the articles and documents in writing. He further declared that section 4 of the electronic transaction act states that written law requirements comply with the maintenance of electronic documents, data messages or electronic forms of communication. He says that the approval of the members in the meeting in electronic form is valid as per the ETA. The period of the document was explained in section 6. He says that electronic signature also comes under ETA. Section 7 of ETA explains the electronic signature. Storage requirements, communication channels, and communication modes are changing in the digital age. So, digitalisation helps the company secretaries to work with proof and time centric.
Digital innovations for company secretaries:
Communication channels, electronic signature, storage requirements and amendments resolution are the key-metric areas for company secretary in the digital age. The advantages of digital innovations are listed below:
- Uniformity and agreement are essential elements of a board meeting. Company secretaries need to take responsibility for educating the board members about the use of technical tools.
- The boardroom technology is first analysed for the plus and minus features by the company secretaries. After the approval of company secretaries, the technology enters the organisation for administrative processes. In the year 1990, the World Wide Web became accessible to everyone. It created an international culture. Football world Cup 1990 is the first event that happened through digital HDTV.
- From the year 2000, the digital revolution started taking place.
- The year 2017 increased the budget for digital transformation. Companies tried to fill the gaps between mobile apps, and web and offline transactions. Business transformation and customer experience were given paramount importance.
- New technologies such as mobile technology, big data, cloud computing and IoT services came into existence in the year 2018.
- In 2019, the budget of the companies is framed as 40 per cent towards digital transformation.
- In 2021, digital transactions are grouped under the seven giant companies. The seven giant players moving the digital media are Baidu, Facebook, Apple, Google, Alibaba, Amazon and Tencent.
- The DX growth will achieve a five-year annual compounded growth rate of 16.7 per cent.
- Digital transformation is changing the process of meeting, and document maintenance. Company secretaries are not there to maintain the books and minute-drafting.
- Artificial intelligence is the technology that automates administrative tasks. The administrative process becomes easy with the knowledge of technology, law and concepts.
- The forms that make the administrative task easy with the online system are as follows: INC 1 – for name reservation, INC 3 for the nominee as one person company, INC 4 for change of nominee, INC 5 – an intimation of one Person Company regarding the threshold for share capital and turn over. All these forms are now available in electronic form.
- The research of ICSA {The governance institute – the professional body for company secretaries} with the title of “Next generation governance” brought the result of supporting the technology. Only five per cent of the company secretaries said that technology leads to job loss.
- The advancement of digital innovations urges the company secretaries to follow a learning culture. They need to upskill themselves in the advancement of technology.
Bottom Line:
Digitalisation is a hot topic in all the major professions. The key performance indicators are listed and all the performances are remodelled with digitalisation. Customer satisfaction, profit margin, revenue growth, client retention rate and employee productivity are the key performance indicators for the service industry. The manufacturing and service industry needs to check the performance indicators and digital investments with a detailed analysis. Digital investments would enhance the revenue and profits in long run. Company secretaries use the right technology to save time and enhance accuracy.
