Digital transformation: 7 Reasons to Start with E-Signatures

Featured article by Rahim Kaba, Director of Product Marketing, eSignLive

Today, many enterprises view digitization as a strategic necessity yet are unsure where to begin. Fortunately, there’s an easy entry point that produces immediate returns for both an enterprise and its customers: electronic signatures. As the “low-hanging fruit” of digitization, e-signatures serve as a catalyst for transformation — a quick win for stimulating lasting change.

Here are seven compelling reasons to adopt e-signatures:

1) Eliminate paper, capture data

Digitization is all about the ability to gather, store, retrieve and analyze data. Electronic signatures allow you to create a complete, end-to-end digital process that eliminates paperwork in your documentation chain and digitally tracks each step in the signing process.

2) Accelerate time to revenue

For the engaged customer who’s ready to buy, nothing can be more frustrating than the delays imposed by printing, exchanging, mailing, copying and processing paper documents. Electronic signing eliminates friction, removing distractions – and the temptation to shop elsewhere. On the back end, digitization reduces documentation errors and delays, accelerating payment processing.

3) Demonstrate compliance

Superior e-signature technology has three powerful tools for accountability that paper documents lack: 1) integrated encryption to ensure security; 2) multiple authentication methods that restrict access to appropriate parties; and 3) embedded audit trails that capture who took what actions, when. For both internal auditors and external regulatory authorities, electronic signatures provide evidence of accountability that inspires confidence.

4) Reduce back-office expenses

For many organizations, the largest cost center is paper. E-signatures automate the workflow, removing scanning, archiving, and retrieval expenses from your overhead, while slashing the hard costs of printing, shipping, and storage space.

5) Improve the customer experience

With e-signatures, you can offer customers a variety of user-friendly touchpoints – tablets, pads, kiosks, web portals – that are not only more convenient, but actually eliminate tedious steps (e.g., printing, mailing) that compromise the user experience. Electronic signing ensures consistency with the more modern, consumer-friendly engagement that today’s users expect.

6) Inspire further improvement

Implementing e-signatures has a ripple effect across your entire organization. On a macro-level, the use of e-signatures in one department provides an example that other lines of business will want to emulate. From the more granular, on-the-ground perspective, establishing e-signatures at the beginning of the workflow (when customers sign) facilitates automation throughout the remainder of the process, allowing you to maintain digitization through invoicing, reporting and more.

7) Trumpet quick wins

Nothing breeds success like success. Unlike other technologies that demand large investments in big stacks, e-signature technology can be deployed quickly and relatively cheaply, giving you fast wins that attract champions and encourage internal support for additional digitization.

Open the door to digitization:

Given its ability to deliver so much value so fast, e-signatures should be your enterprise’s entry point for digitization. As you consider your e-signature options, look for qualities that make change management more manageable, including:

Bundled enabling capabilities

The best e-signature technologies include, right inside the box, multiple authentication methods, electronic forms, and automated workflow tools that allow you to implement e-signatures quickly.

Systems integration

Keep it simple: Insist on e-signature technology that comes with plug-and-play extensions for easy integration with your legacy or core systems including DMS, CRM, ERP and more.

With e-signatures, you can do so much more than capture signatures electronically. E-signatures enhance customer experiences, reduce costs and streamline business processes, delivering an almost immediate return on investment. E-signatures create a successful foundation for digitization that can be modeled throughout an entire organization, establishing lasting value for your enterprise and its future.

Rahim Kaba, Director of Product Marketing, eSignLive

Kaba is an expert in the field of electronic signatures and e-vaulting solutions, and has been a driving force in advancing the digital transactions marketplace.