Security online is the key in deal making
A virtual data room was invented a few decades ago and by the moment has become a necessary instrument for successful deal-making. From the very beginning, a VDR was supposed to play the role of a simple repository where businessmen could have stored their documents during M&A deals: virtual platforms substituted land-based data rooms and provided deal-makers with more convenient space for data storage and exchange. However, data room solutions soon evolved into fully functional online venues where businessmen could not only view documents but also edit them, discuss, etc. Hence, a virtual data room has become an efficient environment and allowed deal-makers to forget about time-consuming business trips, face-to-face meetings, and negotiations: VDRs are accessible 24/7 worldwide.
From the perspective of those involved in M&A deals, virtual platforms have a lot of benefits to offer. Usually, M&A deals imply the work with large volumes of documents that have to be analyzed in-depth during due diligence stage. VDRs are equipped with numerous instruments that simplify this process. Thus, advanced search options, filtering instruments, and in-document linking option facilitate navigation in the room and help to find the required document within a few seconds. Bulk and drag-and-drop uploading options help the room owners to update the room in a few clicks and to provide the bidders with the latest data. Integration with Microsoft Office allows users to work with multiple file formats and to edit documents directly within the room.
Along with features that make the work with the documents more convenient, VDRs provide their users with instruments that facilitate communication between the deal participants. Thus, activity tracking option registers all the actions of all the users and includes them in audit reports. Such report provides the room owners with the information on the most active and interested bidders and gives the owners a hint that it is better to focus on communication with these visitors. At the same time, Q&A section helps the deal participants to interact with each other and discuss the documents directly within the platform.
On a contrary to physical data rooms, virtual platforms are accessible for multiple visitors concurrently. It means that more bidders have time to take part in M&A deal and to analyze the corporate data. As more people are involved, the room owners might expect the competition to increase and the final price for a company or its assets to be higher. Moreover, the room administrators are allowed to segregate users into permission groups and decide which group has an access to which files. Hence, a VDR offers the possibility to lead several projects within one platform.
As M&A deals usually imply sharing of confidential corporate information, data and account security are of paramount importance. Decent virtual platforms are equipped with a complex security system that protects the data on multiple levels and includes such functions as dynamic personally-identifiable watermarks, data encryption, two-step user verification, firewalls, virus scanning, “fence view” option that prevents camera-based attacks, regular backups. In addition, the administrators have the right to revoke an access to files even if they have already been downloaded and the right to impose time and IP restrictions on access. Such military-level security is unprecedented and can’t be compared to data protection offered by physical repositories.
Evidently, virtual data rooms have all the features to speed up the execution of M&A deal and to make it more profitable. However, to experience all the benefits inherent to VDRs, the one has to find the right partner. Although there are numerous vendors on the markets, only the most reputable and experienced deserve attention. iDeals is one of the top-10 companies among VDR providers. It has more than eight years of experience, has assisted in complex cross-national deals, and has proved its reputation of the trustworthy and reliable vendor. iDeals treats every M&A deal separately from all the deals it was involved in and tries to find an individual approach. It offers the clients customized solutions and helps them to make the room consistent with the project’s goals: the client can order a branded website, ask to embed corporate colours and logos, ask for customized invitation letters, emails, reports, etc. Before cooperating with iDeals the one can use a free trial version and, in a case iDeals meets his expectations, upgrade the platform to professional or enterprise level.