How to Set Up a Secure and Effective Virtual Deal Room

Virtual data room providers have become essential data-sharing solutions for businesses that are seeking to scale or increase deal efficiency. That’s because virtual data rooms not only help in sharing confidential documents with third parties but add significant value to the M&A process.

However, setting up a secure and effective virtual deal room is essential to enjoy the perks of VDR technology. Here are some important things to take care of when setting up a deal room:

• Choosing the right virtual deal room that goes with your business model.
• Features to look at while opting for data room services.
• How you can enhance productivity and security using a virtual deal room.

Before We Start: What is a Virtual Deal Room?

VDRs are indeed becoming a fixture of the corporate landscape. That’s because a virtual deal room has a lot more to offer than just being an online data storage tool.

Virtual data room also functions as an M&A project management tool, allowing users to engage with other team members via direct messaging, generate and manage tasks for everyone, view workflows, and whatnot.

Setting Up a Virtual Data Room: Important Things to Consider

Here is how you can prepare ahead of time and take the fundraising process, M&A, and all other transactions to the whole next level.

Step #1: Choose the Right Data Room Software

Albeit there are various virtual data rooms exhibiting numerous functionalities and features at every pricing point; here’s what you can consider while choosing the right virtual deal room for your company

Ask yourself:

• What is my budget?
• For how long am I going to use the electronic data room?
• How much storage would I need?
• Who will have access to the online repository?
• What features can maximize the output of the business?

All-in-all, having your priorities in place will help you boil down the research. This is what you need to look out for:

Security

Despite the globally known cyber incidents that affected Yahoo and Marriott and the like, cyber incidents continue to grow daily, with technology and communications companies being at the most risk.

If you are still relying on traditional cloud storage solutions, you might be compromising on security. We cannot stress enough how important it is to switch to contemporary data-driven digital solutions such as purpose-built data room software for security.

Always seek a virtual data room that allows you to encrypt your documents both in transit and storage. You should be able to access advanced security features such as two-step verification, digital rights management function, etc.

Usability

To avoid wasting time, always opt for data room software that is convenient and easy to use. That’s because an intuitive interface makes everything easily accessible and allows your team members to adapt to the new environment faster- increasing overall efficiency.

Step #2: Always Sign the NDA

Businesses often overlook the importance of signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Yes, it’s vital to do so since a lot of confidential information will be shared using the data room software platform.

Hence it’s legally valid to have such assurance that your data will not be misused. How to go about it? Have your legal team on board with the data room provider and go through the terms and conditions — negotiate and sign.

Step #3: Structure the Virtual Data Room

Organizing your virtual deal room is of utmost importance. Here you will be making folders and subfolders, keeping in mind the purpose each will be serving.

Remember: your virtual deal room should be easily navigable. Hence, you can add different project files targeting specific activities. Also, you might look for a virtual data room that offers a file indexing and full-text search feature to make data assortment and retrieval easy.

Step #4: Set the Admin Control

“Data security threat is going on a global scale hence, opting for a dedicated virtual data room makes risk management, due diligence, biotech licensing, IPOs, and fundraising less complicated,” says Ronald Hernandez, Founder of an independent data room comparison platform that selects, tests, and recommends some of the best data rooms on the market.

Hence, when configuring access levels in a virtual deal room, here’s what you need to decide:

• You need to ask yourself whether you would want to give restricted access to a few users or grant more flexibility to the users.
  
• Whether the users are allowed to download or print the resource files or not; you can restrict them from performing other functions on selected, confidential documents.

Before putting up confidential documents, don’t forget to add watermarks to avoid inconvenience in the future.

Step #5: Invite Users

Once you upload all the documents and reconfirm access settings, you can invite users by entering their emails or sending out the invitations.

Also, you can add users in bulk in one go, or you can add them separately with customized settings. And don’t forget to do a test invitation to avoid slip-ups.

Final Words

Setting up an effective and secure virtual data room is no rocket science. If you choose the right data room provider and stick to your company’s principal goal in mind, you will find yourself operating in a superbly efficient and secure virtual data room environment.

And as for the bit of time, it takes to set up a virtual deal room? It’s worth it!