There’s no question that cloud-powered versions of word processors, spreadsheets, and mail have made businesses more efficient. But even as smart businesses invest in productivity-enhancing cloud solutions such as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) to automate every other aspect of their operations, there is one aspect often overlooked: digitizing agreement and approval processes.
The leadership team at Amaxra recognized “signing on the dotted line” for our numerous paper-based contacts and agreements as outdated, cumbersome, and inefficient years ago. Not just for our customers but also for our partners, suppliers, and employees. That’s when we started using DocuSign to allow eSignatures on all of those formerly paper-based documents. Since then, the benefits Amaxra has enjoyed by using DocuSign are so compelling that we wanted to tell you about the three biggest reasons why your business should make eSignatures part of your standard operating procedure:
- It helps streamline the time to sign – Amaxra’s consulting business found that we spent a lot of time waiting for paper documents to be signed and returned. Even though our organization was much smaller at the time, we made the call to use eSignatures through DocuSign to speed up the time to sign a consultancy contract. We believe that by enabling our customers to sign agreements anytime, anywhere—in the office, at home, or on the road—helped our business to grow more quickly. Whether you sell or purchase, a fully-digital agreement empowers you to strike while the iron is hot. DocuSign made it extremely easy for Amaxra to offer eSignatures because it’s a cloud-based service. We would upload a Word document to DocuSign, add the names and emails of the document’s signer(s), then indicate where in the Word document where they had to sign. The whole process automated. Using eSignatures reduces the paperwork burden enormously on both the selling or purchasing side of the business equation. By automating proposals, contracts, and other customer documents—and relieving reps from chasing down signatures—you free up significant amounts of time in your organization.
- The convenience creates confidence – With the rise of remote working and mobile productivity via the use of smartphones, tablets, and mobile apps, it makes sense for companies to make signing agreements fast and convenient. Think about how one-click purchasing from Amazon has changed how people shop online. Security is built into the process. In a similar fashion, using a secure eSignature for a contract speeds the sale cycles and improves your win rates. For example, waiting for a paper contract to be signed and returned by fax not only slows the sales cycle but it gives customers the opportunity to change their minds and take their business elsewhere. That’s just for sales; think about the time and cost savings that are possible when secure eSignatures are used for new-hire processing, invoicing, service contracts, home mortgage documents, event registrations, and any other process that requires an individual to give their legally-binding consent. With DocuSign, your customers will have the confidence to securely sign any document you give them while staying secure and compliant.
- It’s digital, mobile, and international – Compliance is important no matter where a business conducts business. A streamlined, digital business process has to be compliant with all regional rules and regulations. Using DocuSign allows you to reduce non-compliance risk by maintaining visibility into every part of the process, retaining documents, and establishing a fully electronic audit trail. An eSignature is no good unless it meets critical industry requirements such as PCI and Sarbanes-Oxley in the United States. The good news is that DocuSign is the global leader in electronic signature. It serves more than 250,000 companies and 100 million users in 188 countries and is available in 43 languages.
Adopting eSignatures at your business helps automate and streamline nearly every agreement. This can save you time and money while staying secure and compliant. Amaxra partnered with DocuSign years ago to integrate eSignatures into not just our business processes, but we built end-to-end online processes with DocuSign for our Office 365 and Dynamics 365 customers.
