The letter “V” in V-Rooms stands for “Vault” and does a very good job as far as organization and is concerned. However, M&A transactions and due diligence project require much more than organization capabilities and need to be able to provide security while streamlining the business process in addition to helping you get organized. Let’s take a look if V-Rooms has what it takes to allow you to conduct M&A transactions and due diligence.
V-Rooms Data Room Review
We mentioned security at the outset since it appears that V-rooms has overlooked fairly simple security threats. While it goes to great length to prevent hackers and viruses from attacking your documents, there is really nothing to defend against camera based attacks. Someone could simply take out their smartphone and take a picture of the document and there is nothing you can do about it if you use V-Rooms. However, some of the more modern security features that data rooms are equipped with are called “Fence View” which serves as a physical barrier between the user and the document. This is a very simple yet realistic threat that many data rooms overlook.
The granular access permissions that V-rooms provide seem to serve as a security feature and in some instances may even hinder business processes. For example, if you would like to upload an Excel spreadsheet, even if you share it within a closed circle of people, they will still have access to the data contained on the surface and below i.e. the formulas that were used during the calculation. This could prevent you from sharing the spreadsheet altogether. However, some data rooms offer secure spreadsheet viewing which offers a finer level of granularity and allows you to restrict information contained within the document itself, such as formulas. This is a new and innovative feature that fuses security and efficiency.
M&A deals and due diligence require a lot of communication since there are usually many participants involved and more often than not they have questions about certain data or findings. This is why the Q&A module needs to foster communication in real-time to avoid delays, but, unfortunately, V-Rooms, does not give you this capability. Furthermore, it does not let you mark question statuses which can cause confusion and asking the same questions over and over again. This really hinders your business agility and could cause delays in terms of completing your transactions.
All in all, V-rooms can be useful for you as a central document repository and for getting organized, but it does not have what it takes to handle modern M&A deals or due diligence. Such projects require increased usability and communications features and it not clear what distinguishes V-rooms from other data room provider in this regard. It is very hard to find a data room provider who will go above and beyond what exists today and do not take into account the challenges modern business professionals face. Unfortunately, V-Rooms belongs in this category.