May 06, 2020 The COVID-19 Economy – 3 Ways Virtual Data Room Managers Can Prepare for the Rebound
Three Timely Tips To Enhance Site Management
As COVID-19 is impacting businesses world-wide, including the Merger & Acquisitions market, the oil and gas asset sale and divestiture markets (“A&D”) so is the use of online data rooms. Businesses are struggling to survive, oil and gas asset sales are non-existent given the precipitous crash in oil prices. However, the markets always recover from “black swan” events and these markets will too. As it starts to recover, the use of virtual data rooms (VDR) will escalate back into full throttle. Many of the stronger well-capitalized companies, e.g. Exxon, as well as private-equity groups, will soon start acquiring companies who were left vulnerable by the crisis at bargain prices.
Follow these tips and prepare your business for the coming boom in transactions.
1. Organize and update your site user list
Your VDR user list has all of your individual buyer prospects that will be invited to access projects once they go live. If you are an investment bank or merger and acquisition advisor then you already have a database of buyer prospects. This is a good time to purge and update those user accounts.
- Delete users that are no longer with companies
- Consider adding new user prospects so they may be easily added when starting new online data room project profiles
- Check and validate email addresses and other user account profiles
- Use this time to connect with potential prospects, i.e.: email or phone, to garner connections for future business
2. Review and Edit your Virtual Data Room Site Home Page
If your VDR site is customizable, this is the time to review and update its content. For example you might want to consider:
- Changing the content on the site Home Page which describes your company’s unique services and competitive advantages
- Uploading new images that are attractive and convey information about your company and its successes
- Adding links to other relevant web pages
- Updating your contact information
3. Revisit your Virtual Data Room template
If you are allowed by your virtual data room provider to custom design and build your data room template, it is time to review your current template for possible changes. This is the time to think about how you organize and display data room contents and instructions to best present your data to prospective investors.
Below are some specific ideas:
- Review and change your project data room overview page template (e.g. layout, content)
- Test some new ways to display images
- Consider adding a deal calendar on the project home page
- Change your menu bar layout or quick launch bar order of data presentation
- Update your contacts displayed on your project data room overview page
- Add some new site instructions that will help users navigate and use your data room
Summary
There is no doubt that due to the Covid-19 pandemic the financial transactions market and the use of virtual data room sites has slowed dramatically. As an online data room site administrator, you can sit idly and wait for the markets to return (see Global Virtual Data Room Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 2020-2026) or you can use this downtime to update your user prospect list, re-think your custom data room site text, content, layout and your virtual data room presentation templates.
About the author: Mickey Henry is the owner of idrShare, LLC and supports investment banks, advisory firms and corporations by building and hosting customer designed virtual data rooms. Mr. Henry has over 20 years’ experience in providing customizable virtual data rooms and provides passionate support to his clients.