Virtual data rooms have made it easier for companies to handle sensitive business deals and transactions without compromising security.
But what is a virtual data room, and how can it be of value to your organization? Let’s find out!
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What is a virtual data room (VDR)?
A virtual data room, or electronic data room, is a secure virtual environment that enables companies to share critical documents with stakeholders, investors, clients, and board members.
Traditionally, company officials had to travel to a physical data room to exchange documents in a secure and controlled environment, particularly in major transactions and deals like mergers and acquisitions (M&As), initial public offerings (IPOs), and fundraising.
Virtual data room services provide companies with an all-digital approach that eliminates paperwork and provides even better security than physical data rooms while also offering remote access.
Benefits of virtual data rooms
Here are some of the perks of using a virtual data room for complex business transactions.
Securely share and organize sensitive documents
The biggest advantage of virtual data rooms is that they enable secure document sharing and organization. This is made possible with features like encryption, dynamic watermarking, two-factor authentication, Single Sign On (SSO), and remote shredding.
Collaborate with internal and external parties
The best virtual data room providers enable organizations to collaborate with investors and stakeholders with built-in features such as:
- Q&A sections
- Voting and poll creation
- Built-in messaging client
- Message notifications
Maintain complete control over your documents
As a VDR administrator, you get full control over who can access or edit particular documents on a granular level. With access permissions, adjusting what each contributor can do with different documents is easy and fast.
Remotely access your files from any device or location
Virtual data rooms can be accessed from desktop and mobile devices from anywhere in the world. This enables key individuals and board members to stay updated regardless of what device they’re using or their location.
How can a virtual data room help your organization?
Some of the most common use cases of virtual data rooms include the following.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As)
M&A deals often involve sharing large amounts of sensitive documents that should only be accessed by specific individuals. The due diligence process is where VDRs are used extensively in M&A deals.
During the process, different parties share and review sensitive information throughout the negotiations, making the use of a virtual data room essential.
Auditing
Auditing your company’s compliance and practices typically involve collaborating with third parties and regulators, as well as sharing sensitive documents about the company’s legal, financial, and operational status.
Virtual data rooms make the process much more streamlined and secure by providing a secure environment for document reviewing and auditing.
Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)
Is your organization going public? This means you’ll have to comply with certain regulatory and transparency standards in order for prospective shareholders to see the value behind buying shares at your company.
Virtual data rooms make document retention and management, as well as responding to compliance and regulations, much simpler and more secure.
Business partnerships
Establishing strategic partnerships with other businesses requires data exchange and contracts. Virtual data rooms make contract and document signing and reviewing more efficient and secure. They also provide a secure cloud repository for archiving these documents to retrieve them when needed.
Fundraising
Whether your organization is a startup or a large enterprise, fundraising rounds remain an essential factor in maximizing the growth potential of your business.
However, to be able to convince investors of your company’s value, you’ll have to share sensitive information about your company’s finances, like finances, current, and future projects, patents, legal matters, and other aspects.
With a virtual data room, you’ll be able to securely share these documents with various investors and stakeholders. Not to mention, you’ll learn who viewed particular documents to gauge the interest of your investors.
And because virtual data room vendors provide built-in access controls, you can specify which investors can access or download particular documents.
Final words
Using an online data room software solution is a great way to securely share documents and sensitive information with other parties over the internet. It’s a much safer choice than relying on public cloud storage providers.
Even if your organization isn’t currently going through a major business deal, a virtual data room can still be beneficial in internal and external document sharing. However, it’s important to compare virtual data rooms and choose the most suitable solution for your business.