Problems with meetings: How digital insurance unicorn wefox fixed theirs

Having problems with meetings is something that’s pervasive at all levels of an organisation. Executives are particularly affected by common meeting problems — after all, they spend up to 23 hours per week in meetings, 71% of which are ineffective.^1,2 This is a major concern as it costs huge amounts of money and negatively affects decision-making, among other things. Failing to follow an effective meeting process is not only time-consuming, but also increases the likelihood of errors and lost information. 

Establishing processes with a meeting management solution is a great way to make your meetings more efficient. However, with dozens of meeting management software packages available, choosing the right provider for your meeting management needs isn’t an easy task. 

There are a range of aspects to consider when making a decision, including: 

• How will the solution enable efficient meeting management before, during, and after each meeting
• How secure and compliant is it?
• What features does it offer?
• How strong is its reputation and level of service?
• What does the solution cost and how many resources are needed to run it?

Generally speaking, looking at a buyer's guide can help you find the best software solution in order to manage your meetings.

Another way to help your research and decision-making process is to look at other companies who have successfully made the move to best-in-class meeting management — and try to understand how they did it. That's exactly what this article is about.

Wefox, one of the largest digital insurance unicorns in the world, chose Sherpany’s meeting management solution for a variety of reasons, and uses it to manage their executive and board meetings. In an interview with their Group General Counsel, Dr. Marc Olivier Morant, we explored their reasoning and requirements for a meeting management tool and why Sherpany was the best choice.

The goal of this article is to help you understand the value of a meeting management solution like Sherpany in order to tackle problems you are likely experiencing with your meetings.

Common meeting problems: The need for a meeting management solution

There is no shortage of problems when it comes to meetings. Meeting madness and unproductive meetings are, unfortunately, still an accepted status quo in many companies and management teams. They cost a lot of money, impact employee well-being and team productivity, and reduce the speed and quality of decision-making.

At wefox, the problems with meetings Dr. Morant faced when he joined the company were clear, primarily around meeting efficiency and security. According to him, “it was quickly clear that the ways how meetings were managed and set up was following a very traditional, slow and outdated path” and he wanted to “find a more efficient way to do this”.

Once he identified the problems they were facing with managing their meetings, Dr. Morant wanted to find a solution that would help solve those problems fully. 

Below are the meeting problems wefox was experiencing and how Sherpany's solution helped them overcome them. For all these reasons, Dr. Morant wanted to lead the change at wefox and digitalise meeting management throughout the entire organisation:

Sherpany and wefox: A seamless partnership

Dr. Morant gives a lot of credit to the way people at Sherpany manage their relationship with their customers, and really appreciates our team’s responsiveness and readiness to quickly solve problems. Sherpany offers 24/7 support to help you evaluate your meetings, and find the right solution for your business.

It was a very well matched tool for our needs. The main feature, how you can set up rooms and agendas, invite people creating subgroups. That's all there.

Dr. Marc Olivier Morant

Group General Counsel at wefox

He mentioned that “in comparison to other vendors, the meeting expert at Sherpany, was exceptional. She was very responsive, and you could truly and authentically feel that she wanted to help.” He also stated that “It made a big difference while purchasing Sherpany.”

A solution that enables increased efficiency in meetings

Ultimately, the right meeting management solution should help make meetings more efficient, both within your team and even across the entire organisation, from top to bottom, making it easier to communicate, collaborate, and make decisions. 

That's exactly what Dr. Morant was looking for: increased efficiency in meetings at wefox. Making meeting processes more efficient, more streamlined, centralised, faster, and less error-prone, as well as more secure for executives, board members, and assistants. These were the main elements that needed to be transformed. And thanks to Sherpany, wefox were able to achieve this.

Dr. Morant affirmed "We're now all on one platform. Executives and administrators have access to all relevant information all in the same place, like if everything would be visible in a virtual room. Meeting roles are also much clearer, like who organises, who participates". 

Today, Dr. Morant and wefox use Sherpany in two countries, but they plan to expand it worldwide. We would like to thank Dr. Morant for his time and ideas, which are enlightening and could benefit other companies.  

Does your organisation experience problems with meetings? Find out how you can solve them. Talk to our meeting experts today.

¹ ‘The Science and Fiction of Meetings', S. Rogelberg for MIT Sloan Management Review, 2007.

² 'Stop the Meeting Madness', Harvard Business Review, 2017.

Aurélie Toro

About the author

Aurélie uses her experience in content creation and digital marketing to help French-speaking leaders in their daily practices. Always looking to do things that make sense for society and passionate about researching, writing and sharing useful information, she does her best to bring a fresh vision to the leaders who read us on the topics of agile management, meeting management and digital transformation.