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Electronic Signatures Must Be User and Business Friendly

Currently, when most people think about electronic signature capturing
the first technology that comes to mind is Public Key Infrastructure or
(“PKI”). This technology was developed 30 years ago as a method of
secure communication. Technological advances of the 21 century have
shown PKI to be difficult to deploy, expensive to maintain and too
rigid for most business processes.

PKI frustrates many business people, because the process is ineffective
in a sales or transactional environment. No sales person or manager
wants to force a potential client to veer off of the road from a
successful sale, and take a side trip to purchase a $20 to $80 PKI
certificate.

How Electronic Signatures Can Help You

In order to fully understand how electronic signatures can help you and
your business we need to take a look at why we want to use them in the
first place. Electronic signatures offer a wide variety of benefits to
everyone involved in a transaction. They reduce costs associated with
signing files by cutting overhead. Electronic signatures allow us to
cut hard costs like paper, ink, printer wear, staples, pens, shipping
and handling, but they also allow us to cut soft costs like storage,
copying, filing, retrieval, auditing and tracking. Overall electronic
signatures can save hundreds of dollars on a single contract for small
contracts and thousands or tens of thousands for large contracts.

Let’s demonstrate how the savings can be realized. A business sends
out 100 proposals per year that are approximately 150 pages long. It is
primarily black and white ink. The client prints the 150 page proposal
on regular stock paper 1 and binds it 2.
The proposal is then placed in an overnight delivery envelope and
shipped next day air, with a return envelope provided, which is also
next day air 3. Once the client receives the proposal, reads it and signs their acceptance, the proposal is then shipped back to the business 4
in the provided overnight envelope. Once the proposal arrives at the
business, the sales team and managers need to be notified, so they can
engage the client. The proposal then needs to be filed and stored in a
safe place. The person working at receiving desk will make three copies
of the proposal 5, and distribute them to the required personnel, and subsequently file the original proposal in a filing cabinet 6. So what are the costs?

Costs Associated With The Use of Paper

(1) 150 + Ink + Paper + Wear and Tear on printer = $3.
(2) Binding = $1.50
(3) Outbound Overnight Shipping = $20
(4) Inbound Overnight Shipping = $20
(5) 3 x 150 + Ink + Paper + Wear and Tear on printer = $9
(6) 150 Pages Storage Using Government Estimate = $19
Labor @ 2 Hours for Total Process = $40
2 Days Opportunity Time for Best Delivery Option = $Unknown

Total Cost of Using Paper = ($112.50) x (100) = $11,250

Costs Associated With Electronic Signature

Labor @ 15 Minutes for Total Process = $5
Sending File Electronically = $5
Delivery Is Immediate = No Lost Opportunity Costs

Total Cost of a Paperless Transaction = ($10) x (100) = $1,000

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Total Savings Using Electronic Signature Service vs. Paper = $10,250 Per Year

Having a technology available to your business that will reduce
overhead on a single expense by 90% is attractive for any business,
especially one that will benefit other areas as well.

The challenge for managers is to find the right electronic signature capture service for their businesses needs.