Entity Management: How Evolving Technology Is Changing Compliance

Annie: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, "Entity Management: How Evolving Technology Is Changing Compliance." My name is Annie Triboletti. I will be your moderator kicking things off for us today.

So joining us today are Barb Bilsak and Kat Fender. They are two of CSC's expert sales engineers focusing on entity management. So with that, I would like to welcome in Kat and Barb.

Kat: Thank you all for joining us today. Good morning. We're really excited to show you off our demonstration of the Entity Management system and go through some of the upcoming new releases and latest and greatest from our Entity Management. And, Barb, I will turn it over to you as well.

Barb: Well, welcome everyone. Thanks again for joining us for today's webinar, "How Evolving Technology Is Changing Compliance." I'd like to start by sharing today's agenda. And I'll begin with a little bit of background on CSC and who we are as a company. I see many familiar names in attendance today, but for the benefit of those who are not currently engaging CSC for our services, I will share a bit about who we are and what we do. After that, we'll get into some of the key challenges that organizations face when it comes to managing their entities and why they choose to adopt an entity management technology.

We'll then move into a review of the evolution of entity management technologies and consider not just how far they've come, but where CSC will lead the future of entity management. Kat will then take us through what makes CSC different from our competitors, along with some of our recent technology enhancements, as well as a preview of what's left to come this year.

All right. So who is CSC? This slide highlights CSC as an organization. We're headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, with a global presence on 5 continents in over 140 jurisdictions. Our story dates back to 1899, when one of our founders drafted the original Delaware Corporation Law, and we've remained privately held ever since. We're proud to serve over 90% of the Fortune 500, who utilize CSC for at least one of our services, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 utilize CSC Entity Management technology. In over 125 years, we've expanded our global reach and experience, but none more so than with the 2023 acquisition of the Intertrust Group, which makes us a force of nearly 9,000 strong with decades of service experience wherever you may be doing business. And our follow-the-sun methodology allows for expert service where and when you need us most.

So let's begin by briefly reviewing some of the challenges, definitions, and drivers to make sure that we're all on the same page. So what is entity management? When people hear entity management, they often think it's solely the responsibility of the corporate secretary or the legal department. In reality, entity management touches nearly every part of the organization. It involves governance, compliance, finance, tax, legal, treasury, and business operations, making collaboration and visibility essential to providing transparency across teams. The challenge is balancing transparency with security by ensuring people have access to the information that they need, when they need it, while maintaining proper controls.

Every legal entity has compliance obligations whether at the international, federal, state, provincial, or local level. As organizations expand into new markets, the number of requirements grows exponentially. Missing even a single deadline can create financial penalties, reputational risk, and even operational disruptions.

Entity management is also about managing a tremendous amount of information. Beyond storing information, teams must ensure it's accurate, it's current, and it's easily accessible. Effective entity management transforms entity data into actionable business intelligence.

And entity management is not a one-time event. It's an ongoing process that spans the life cycle of an entity, from formation to restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, and ultimately dissolution. And having a structured process for managing these changes helps maintain data integrity throughout that life cycle.

Most organizations don't manage every compliance organization internally. Most organizations are doing more with far less people. So they rely on agents, corporate secretarial providers, law firms, and other partners across many jurisdictions. Technology plays a critical role in connecting internal teams to all of the external providers.

When you look at all of these responsibilities together, it becomes clear that entity management is much more than maintaining a corporate record book. It's a strategic function that enables compliance, supports governance, facilitates collaboration, and provides the trusted information organizations need to make informed decisions. As we'll see throughout today's session, technology is helping organizations manage this complexity more efficiently than ever.

All right. Now that we understand the broad scope of entity management, let's take a look at the technology that enables organizations to manage all of that complexity effectively. At its core, entity management software provides a single source of truth for all data and documents, replacing manual processes and person-dependent knowledge with clean, consistent, and actionable data for everyone who relies on it.

A centralized repository helps eliminate data silos and improves confidence in the information being used. One of the most requested features that we hear about is structure charting. And the ability to understand entity ownership structures can be very challenging, especially for organizations with large multinational portfolios. Entity management software can generate both graphical and text-based ownership reports, which are particularly valuable during audits, transactions, restructurings, or even M&A. The ability to store and maintain accurate officer, director, and authorized signer information is critical for governance and compliance. Entity management software helps maintain accurate records and reduces risk, supporting effective governance.

Corporate records are among an organization's most valuable compliance assets. Entity management software provides a secure location for storing minute books, resolutions, formation documents, bylaws, certificates, and all of the historical records for an entity. Centralized document management also improves audit readiness and business continuity.

Reporting is one of the most important capabilities of modern entity management software. Teams often need information for board meetings, audits, compliance reviews, tax planning, and executive decision-making. Entity management software eliminates the manual effort of collecting information from multiple sources, and it allows for the quick generation of accurate reports based on real-time data.

Compliance obligations occur continuously across the entity life cycle. Entity management software provides visibility into upcoming filings, renewals, annual reports, and other important deadlines. Automated reminders help teams stay ahead of obligations and reduce the risk of missed deadlines. Transparency turns compliance from a reactive to a proactive process.

When you combine centralized data, reporting, document management, organization charts, and compliance visibility, entity management software becomes much more than just a database. It becomes the operational foundation to improve governance, reduce risk, increase efficiency, and make more informed decisions.

So many first generation entity management solutions were designed primarily as recordkeeping systems. The primary function was to store information rather than actively support workflows, collaboration, compliance management, or business decision-making. While these systems represented a significant improvement over paper files and spreadsheets, today's compliance environment demands much more. Legacy solutions were developed when organizations managed fewer entities in fewer jurisdictions. As companies expanded globally, platforms struggled to accommodate compliance requirements, ownership structures, and regulatory frameworks, which meant users were forced to supplement the system with spreadsheets and other tools to manage the complexity.

Older platforms also offered limited flexibility in how organizations could configure workflows, fields, reports, and user access. Modern organizations need flexible platforms that adapt to their processes rather than forcing teams into a rigid workflow. They also limited insight into what was happening across the portfolio. That lack of visibility caused teams to be reactive rather than proactive and increased the risk of missed filings.

Legacy systems frequently operated as standalone applications, where the information was manually entered and updated across multiple systems. Teams working from different datasets created inefficiencies and made enterprise-wide reporting difficult.

Reporting capabilities in older systems are often limited to static reports and simple exports. Organizations increasingly need real-time reporting and visual insights to support strategic decision-making.

Maintaining data accuracy in a legacy environment often requires considerable manual effort. As the portfolio grows, the administrative burden grows with that, and valuable employee time becomes focused on maintaining the system rather than managing risk or supporting the business.

These limitations don't necessarily mean that the legacy system is ineffective. It simply reflects a different era of entity management. Organizations and demands have evolved dramatically, and the next generation of entity management solutions moves beyond information storage to deliver automation, integration, visibility, and intelligence that helps teams work faster and smarter, not harder.

So Kat is keeping an eye on the Q&A widget. So keep those questions coming. And if we're unable to get to all of those questions during the webinar, we'll be sure to follow up with you after our call.

So modern entity management platforms are no longer passive repositories for information. They're designed to actively support compliance, governance, collaboration, and decision-making. The focus has shifted from simply storing data to helping organizations connect information, streamline work, and drive action.

Modern platforms provide a centralized location for all data and documents, eliminating the challenge of maintaining information across spreadsheets, share drives, email folders, and disconnected systems. This improves data quality, consistency, and confidence in reporting.

Whether you're managing 2 or 2,000 entities here in the U.S. or across the globe, modern entity management solutions support growth and provide visibility across the organization. They support customization for tailored views, reports, and even role-based permissions to maintain appropriate security controls.

One of the biggest advances in modern technology is the ability to embed compliance intelligence combined with automated reminders to reduce the risk of missed filing events. Many times organizations depend on information that exists across multiple systems. Modern entity management platforms integrate with other business applications that create a connected ecosystem of data, reducing duplicate entry, improving accuracy, and creating operational efficiency.

Modern platforms also provide powerful reporting and analytics, helping organizations move beyond data collection towards strategic analysis. Automation reduces repetitive administrative tasks, and bulk update capabilities allow teams to make large-scale changes quickly and accurately. AI-powered capabilities help users locate information faster, summarize records, and gain insights from large volumes of data, which enables teams to focus on higher value activities.

So let's talk about why organizations implement entity management software. Many organizations still rely on spreadsheets and share drives, email chains, and manual processes to manage their entity information. As the portfolio grows, this approach becomes difficult to maintain, and it introduces significant risk to the organization while consuming valuable employee time.

One of the most immediate benefits of entity management software is centralization, which enables stronger collaboration between legal, compliance, tax, and finance groups. With everyone working from the same data, organizations can make faster, more informed decisions. While data storage remains important, the most effective solutions help organizations work smarter.

Every organization has unique processes, responsibilities, and governance requirements. Modern platforms are configurable, and that flexibility increases adoption and the long-term value. Many entity management tasks are repetitive and process driven. Automated workflows create consistency and accountability across teams and reduces the administrative burden. AI is also becoming an important enhancement to entity management platforms, accelerating access to knowledge and improving productivity.

Leadership increasingly expects real-time visibility into portfolio-wide analytics. And modern entity management users can answer complex questions quickly without manually gathering information from multiple sources.

And finally, the ability to integrate with a third-party solution. Organizations typically rely on multiple systems across legal, finance, tax, and HR. Connecting these systems eliminates duplicate data entry. It improves consistency and creates a more connected and efficient operating environment.

So we reviewed how significantly the entity management technology landscape has evolved. Now let's look at how CSC Entity Management brings those capabilities together to help organizations manage both domestic and multinational portfolios effectively and more efficiently than ever.

Kat: All right. Now that Barb has explained the various aspects of entity data management and entity management software, let's talk about CSC's very own Entity Management. So CSC's Entity Management is completely integrated with CSC's Compliance services in the U.S. and around the world. Our technology gives you the ability to store an unlimited number of data and documents within the system, as well as unlimited customization throughout. Use it to track corporate data, officer and director data, capital, ownership, store documents in minute book folders, and calendar all of your compliance events. Utilize the advanced automated features to create documents, organization charts, and reports. And CSC Entity Management is meant to be that centralized source of truth for all of your entities during all points of its life cycle.

And what makes CSC different? We are one of the only providers that has this marriage between the technology and our services. CSC's Entity Management can be a standalone solution all by itself, where you upload and maintain your own data and documents. But when combined with our services, such as U.S. registered agent, annual reports, international corporate secretarial services, like our Global Subsidiary Management, the technology has more value and benefit when combined with those services. And that's because every service we provide to you, every filing we do for you is automatically updated and maintained in the system.

We populate the entity basics, upload all the filings we do for you on your behalf in the minute book folders and in our main drawer. We calendar all of your annual compliance events, and that's where you could log in to the system to see where we are at in the progress of your filing, if we're handling your annual reports, as well as update any information in the system that may have changed as a result of a filing we did on your behalf. We can provide this service and support in all of the U.S. states as well as in over 140 countries worldwide. We are wherever you need us to be.

Some of the highlights that make CSC Entity Management different. That complete integration, it's monumental. Everything automatically flows into the system. You don't have to do anything where we've done the filing on your behalf. It's incredibly intuitive and easy to use, easy to customize. It's connected to our built-in Knowledge Base to automate the calendar event creation. Importantly, we are SOC 2 Type 2 security compliant.

And that flat annual fee, you'll always have that budget certainty with CSC, and everything is included in that flat fee. So we don't do tiers or extra fees, or a new feature as it is released costs more money. Everything is part of that flat fee. As we release the new features that we talk about on these next few slides, you'll have the automatic access, no additional fees to use it. And you'll get unlimited users into the system. They could be internal to the company from different teams and departments, like tax, HR, legal, finance. Or those unlimited users could be external folks, like outside legal counsel or auditors or regulators. So that's basically anyone you want can be permissioned into the system, and then you'll have role-based permissions over all of those users. So that's how you can control things like what entities a person can see, what documents they can access, whether they have editing rights or can only view the information in the system. And there are a lot of nuances to those role-based permissions. And that's how you can control everyone's access.

For all of those users you'll have unlimited training. Like I mentioned earlier, that's for the lifetime you're with us. So we can do that one-on-one, in groups, and we'll tailor those training sessions to what you want those users to learn. So if someone new joins your team in a few years, we will do all of their training. Or if you just need a refresher, that's what we're here for. And as we release these new features and enhancements, if you need any extra training to learn how to use them more efficiently and effectively, that's what we're here for.

Always reach out to us, contact us. We want to support you in all of those ways. And if there's anything that we can help you with, those are the types of questions we can also answer in training sessions as well, or via your dedicated entity portfolio specialist can help you with some of those, too.