Is Your E-Signature Solution A Sunk Cost?

“ Is it worth waiting for a contract signature for weeks when you need to source urgent supplies in 3 days? “

E-signature solutions have been in use for decades but have started gaining greater legal and commercial acceptability in recent years. Today many solution providers have come to the front, but until recently, the electronic Signature solutions space was dominated by one major player founded in 2003.

Contrary to the perception that paper is low-priced, paper-based processes increase the cost of doing business. They bring in errors, inefficiencies, and unnecessary delays.

How eSignatures Help Businesses Perform Better?

• Reduction in average turnaround time
• Improvement in business performance
• Reduction in document costs
• Increased efficiency

Key Reasons Propelling the Growth of the E-Signatures Market

1) Government Initiatives

Governments across the globe are framing regulations governing the use of e-signatures, creating compliance requirements, creating an ecosystem that favors e-signatures.

2) Digitalization

Business processes are going digital and crossing borders. In this scenario, waiting a week to receive signed paper contracts does not make sense to businesses.

3) Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed business. Digital is the new way of life and when all business processes have gone digital, so has the method to send documents and receive signatures.

4) Demand for high-end security solutions

Electronic signatures provide archiving features and are tamper-proof, which means they protect both the sender and recipient against any fraudulent activity.

Are you stuck with an obsolete eSignature solution?

There is nothing worse than investing heavily in an eSignature solution that does not meet your needs. Every company has its unique needs, and a one size fits all policy does not work.

Follow our 3-step approach to identify the solution that meets your needs.

Step 1: Identify your needs — your needs are yours alone

Each organization has unique needs depending on the sector that it operates in. While BFSI organizations need high-level security, pharmaceutical companies need compliances, and retail organizations deal with a volume of contracts. Even within a company, different departments have unique needs.

Contracts are the backbone of the Procurement Department. The Human Resources department spends most of its time managing documents related to the employees, and the finance department is loaded with paperwork. Because departments and organizations vary in needs, when an eSignature solution does not fulfill these needs, it lies obsolete.

Step 2: Evaluate your needs and use-cases

Are you using a combination of eSignatures and wet signatures for the following use cases?

As you have initiated the evaluation journey, it is essential to think through and write down what is most important across these use cases. It is now time to prioritize these use cases.

Any use case with over 100 signatures annually and a low satisfaction level is a prime candidate for change. If you are currently using a wet signature, then you need to adopt an electronic signature. And if you already have an eSignature solution, you should consider changing it.

Step 3: Sizing the opportunity

E-signature solutions deliver significant value and ROI across business processes and business functions like customer contracts and employees across sales, HR, legal, and procurement teams. Each business function has its unique needs, which are met by the eSignature solution.

The benefits include direct cost reduction, benefits from digitization like higher flexibility, greater efficiency, reduction in cycle times, reduction of efforts (across processing and governance), and reduced risks. Additionally, e-Signatures deliver a superior user experience for both internal users and end customers.

Quantifying these benefits can help organizations to demonstrate, justify and realize the value of their investments in e-signatures.

Zycus can assist you with a detailed business case and value quantification process if necessary. However, you can use the following simplified framework to do it yourself to start with.

1. Productivity

Assuming you are already using Zycus’s Contract Lifecycle Management solution, your employees will be able to save an additional 1–1.5 hours per contract by integrating Certinal e-signatures into the Zycus CLM.

At an approximate employee cost of $40–60, and assuming a 50% value capture, each signature can save $20- $45 in employee-related costs. Or put differently, the employee can gainfully use this time for more value-adding work instead of signing contracts or chasing up for signatures.

If you are yet to implement Zycus CLM, the savings would be significantly higher.

2. Savings

Physical contracts can cost anywhere from $5 to $10 towards printing and courier. Also, the cost of storing, retrieving, producing additional copies, etc., can be much higher.

3. Revenue

Your sales reps need to print out documents, send them for signatures, and follow up with clients over phone calls. However, this process is time-consuming and frustrating. However, by automating transactions, the speed of contract closure increases, and sales revenue increases.

4. Efficiency

Remove manual processes and increase efficiency. Also, by automating document management, you don’t need to check who hasn’t signed the document manually. Notifications are automatic, and therefore you get signatures faster.

5. Digital Transformation

Moving away from paper signatures is the first step towards bringing about a digital transformation. An eSignature solution integrates with popular business tools and automates a lot of manual processes. This improves information exchange and connectivity across departments.

6. Customer experience

Your customers get an email notifying them of a document that they have received for signatures. They can click on the email to sign the document and send it back. Hence, the entire process is seamless and quick.

7. Risk Mitigation

Digital signatures reduce the chances of forgery, and detailed audit logs prevent disputes. Therefore, it is always a bonus to have an AI-powered eSignature solution that can highlight risk areas in contracts.

8. Compliance

An eSignature solution meets some of the most stringent global security standards — and complies with the U.S. ESIGN Act, UETA, and EU eIDAS Regulation. These legally binding agreements also come with a detailed audit trail.

9. Lower Carbon Footprint

Paper signatures mean that you need to print a document, scan it, get signatures. However, it consumes a lot of time, energy, and effort. Make a positive impact on the environment by going paperless and adopting e-signatures.

An eSignature solution improves your business performance. It is also essential to choose the right eSignature solution. Therefore, cloud-based e-signature solutions offer benefits like cost-effectiveness, easy deployment, security, and a central management facility across all endpoints.

Hence, businesses deploy these solutions as they offer exceptional security and have less implementation time. Also, these solutions utilize a cloud-based signing key to authenticate documents.

Hence, this eliminates the need for installing on-premises hardware. Since the user’s key is located on the cloud, the document signing process can be completed over the internet from anywhere.

Organizations should look for ways to reduce costs, improve workflow processes, and reduce waste. Therefore, using signatures is an economical and secure alternative to traditional contract signatures. Click here to know more about Certinal.

If you are already using an e-signature solution, this is a good time to re-think your investment based on the benefits you are getting from that solution. You might want to read our blog on the Procurement Leader’s Quick Guide For Digital Signatures.