It is okay to dream big of your upcoming brand, but again, if you snooze, you lose! That’s how fast the business ecosystem is transforming.
Strategies, tools, and customer needs are ever-evolving for everyone. And all businesses, whether established brands or startups business, must stay relevant to survive.
Digital Signatures, for instance, is replacing wet/ink/pen-&-paper signatures. And as simple a transformation as it sounds, there’s much more to it than meets the eye.
These perfectly-legit signatures were legalized with the Esign Act of 2000. In Europe, the EU Ruling to legalize Electronic Signatures happened a year earlier—in 1999.
These regulations consider a compliantly added digital signature on a binding document as legit as an ink/wet signature.
Choosing Digital Signature Restructures Your Business Projects
Small, mid-sized, and well-established businesses stand to reap multiple benefits by shifting to digital strategies.
Switching to e-signatures transforms multiple business processes, including;
- The shift from paper to smart/digital contracts.
- How you discuss business contracts changes. You can now have discussions, agree with prospects, and make changes remotely.
- You change from wet or ink signatures to electronic methods.
- Your entire Document Management System transforms because you now rely mostly on PDFs.
All these shifts can have positive and promising impacts on startup, as we shall see later.
Why is Shifting to Digital the Right Approach?
Implementing e-signatures is a single decision that leads to a complete overhaul in how you do things. And these upgrades are not for granted. The shift to digital streamlines business projects in the following ways.
- Reduces paper. A paper-free office is worker-friendly, agile, easier to manage, and reduces a company’s carbon footprint.
- Streamlines contract and project procedures. Paper-based deals are slow and prone to contract abandonment.
- Eliminates redundant paper processes. A digital approach eliminates the manual, repetitive steps that make paper-based processes tiresome.
- Speeds up contract processes. Smart/digital contracts record more success rates than paper-based agreements.
- Reduces operational costs. You get rid of printing and mailing costs.
With that in mind, let’s learn why a tech-led approach is better than the traditional pen and paper.
The 8 Benefits of Digital Signatures to Startups
Simple and on-the-go signing
Digital signatures are intuitive, and everyone’s preference in many official deals.
This strategy offers easy access to docs, hassle-free signing, and sending of docs from any place and time while eliminating manual processes.
Better Customer Experience
Today’s customer does almost everything online, from shopping to making travel bookings. Introducing smart contracts can further improve their experience and increase the chances of doing repeat business with you.
In essence, this approach can help increase contract success in your startup.
A Layer of Protection
Digital signatures use keys (public and private) to secure data. The sender uses the private key, while the signer uses the public key.
This protection remains solid unless these keys leak or are shared with someone else.
Smoother and Intuitive Projects
Projects involve multiple contracts and documents to be signed. While some deals go down in the initial stages, others happen in the course of a venture and matters a lot to project continuity.
Paper and ink processes hinder the discussion and sign contracts. They slow project processes and can bring everything to a stand-still.
Smart contracts are more agile and intuitive as they allow for on-the-go discussions, changes, and document validation.
Traceable Data
Digital signatures can track the signer, as well as the time and location of validation. They are completely trackable, and their path can be traced in the event of falsification or tampering.
Cost-effective Processes
Because a digital approach moves everything online, you won’t need to cater for expenses like ink, printing, shipping, and paper costs.
It also eliminates piles of paper, thus simplifying and reducing spending that goes into document management.
A Complete Overhaul
As hinted earlier, shifting to an electronic signature means a total upgrade in your organizational culture. It transforms how employees, customers, and your company does business;
- You shift from paper to smart/digital contracts.
- How you discuss contracts also changes. You can now have discussions, agree with prospects, and make changes remotely.
- The change from wet or ink signatures to electronic signatures.
- Your entire Document Management System changes because you now rely mostly on PDFs.
There’s more change to embrace! These are just some of the obvious updates that come with digital signatures.
Better ROI
With digital signatures, you face less document processing and wait times, meaning you put in only a little resource and effort in the doc validation process.
A tech-led approach is free of paper and traditional processes, known to increase the cost of operations.
Summing Up
While digital signatures carry promising benefits, poor implementation can endanger a business’s bottom line.
Startups must search for the right vendor depending on their specific needs and budget.
