From high-growth startups and medium-sized businesses to established corporations, all companies, regardless of their industries, can benefit from replacing paper-based workflows with electronic signatures, or simply e-signatures. Integrating e-signature solutions into business workflows does not only provide extra security in transactions and reduce operating costs. For companies that regard proper time management as an indispensable component in their success, utilizing electronic signature solutions enable them to streamline workflows, resulting in faster turnarounds due to improved efficiency and productivity. Moreover, across business industries, companies that adopt electronic signature solutions continue to see improvements in their day-to-day operations, as the adoption leads to shortened project timelines and automation of documentation procedures.
An electronic signature is the digital counterpart of a traditional wet ink signature. In essence, it is an electronic form of a handwritten signature. Just like its manual equivalent, it holds the same legal standing as long as it adheres to specific requirements approved by the law. To highlight its convenience, it allows individuals to manage and sign documents using a computer, tablet, and smartphone, any time and no matter where they are.
While adopting electronic signature solutions provide several benefits to businesses, it is understandable that not all companies are eager to adopt. In the corporate landscape, new technologies require companies to adjust and even renew their well-trusted and established workflows. Moreover, the fear of disruption is present. Nevertheless, the benefits far outweigh the preventable risks.
By utilizing electronic signatures, signing a document becomes a secure, simple, and convenient task. While learning the ropes of new technologies requires users to be patient, cooperative, and intuitive, electronic signature solutions make the signing process straight-through and faster; It eliminates the steps involved in a traditional signature process, such as printing, scanning, and couriering. As it gives businesses a new edge, positioning them ahead of the competition, it also helps them achieve a higher level of client satisfaction by giving customers the ability to sign important paperwork using their mobile device any time despite their location and timezone. Moreover, while subscribing to an electronic signature solutions provider entails cost, in the long run, businesses that continue to use traditional methods of managing and signing documents spend more on operating costs compared to businesses that utilize electronic signature solutions. It might be impossible to eliminate paper in workflows completely, but electronic signature solutions help not only in reducing waste but also in reducing operating costs as going paperless results in lesser use of resources. By going paperless, companies can reassign their saved money to initiatives that improve operations and have long-term benefits. They may use it to upgrade processes and implement new technology-based methods, to expand their target market reach, to reward deserving employees, and to create more systematic client-management approaches.
Due to its advantages, many companies from different industries are now turning to electronic signature solutions. Here are some of the industries that can benefit from integrating e-signature solutions into their processes.
Real Estate Industry
As an industry that constantly deals with paperwork, the real estate sector greatly benefits from electronic signature solutions. Every day, real estate professionals need to manage documents and coordinate with clients. They deal with hundreds of pages of agreements and contracts that need signatures. Paper documents require a lot of time and attention to accomplish. Moreover, it is prone to errors that often cause delays. Electronic signature solutions enable real estate professionals to stay on top of their paperwork. Those who are tech-savvy and utilize technology to improve the way they deliver service to their clients close more deals successfully. In addition, their excellent customer service strengthens their reputation and results in more clients due to referrals — an important factor to gain clients in real estate.
Retail Industry
Processes in the retail sector that involve paperwork include dealing with contracts and inventory documents. From confirming orders to delivering goods, almost every step requires paperwork. Moreover, it is a usual scene in a retail company that the tables of employees have piles of documents daily. To picture a scene to better understand the amount of paperwork involved in transactions, some retailers require a minimum of three copies of a contract. A retail employee manages several contracts for several clients. By using electronic signature solutions, retail companies can organize documents efficiently using centralized web-based storage. In addition, signing documents and requesting signatures are easier.
Healthcare Industry
The health of every person is important. Therefore, the healthcare sector is governed by strict federal laws. Before proceeding with health procedures, a patient needs to complete and sign several documents. Electronic signature solutions that provide an electronic document management system can simplify paperwork and enable healthcare administrative staff to manage document and signature processes without any hassle. Healthcare facilities that want to improve patient management should adopt electronic signature solutions. Moreover, electronic signature solutions provide a safer and convenient way to get signatures from patients.
Legal Industry
Legal professionals, particularly lawyers, manage and sign hundreds of documents on behalf of their clients. Regardless of the legal situations that the clients are involved in, signing documents can be tedious. Moreover, legal documents include proper coordination and stringent evaluation. Adopting electronic signature solutions allows clients to sign documents wherever they are; this enables them to save time and attend to important engagements. All in all, electronic signature solutions offer high-level security that is crucial and beneficial in any legal transaction.
Financial Industry
Financial transactions require signatures for authentication. The financial industry is one of the business sectors that involves a lot of signing. Today, many financial institutions utilize the use of electronic documents, as they have realized the expensive operating costs involved in manual documentation and the use of electronic signature solutions provides a more secure and confidential way of doing financial transactions. Due to an electronic signature having the same legal status as a traditional handwritten signature, more and more financial institutions are utilizing it. Aside from offering a safer approach to complete transactions without delays, electronic signature solutions also contribute to the speeding up of processes. This is more beneficial for transactions that require completing and signing forms, such as requesting loans, opening bank accounts, and applying for investment plans.
Due to its convenience, security, and reliability, companies across business industries are shifting from traditional handwritten signatures to electronic signatures. While the list only enumerated some of the industries that benefit from the use of electronic signature solutions, all industries can use electronic signatures to their advantage.