Old habits die hard. This is especially true for business habits and practices of corporations or even whole industries. No wonder that CEOs and other C-suites all around the world tend to be quite slow to implement tech innovations within their organizations. Which can easily backfire, by the way. Such attitude is one of the main reasons why more open-minded startups can sometimes pull the carpet from under well-established colossi.
However, every once in a while emerges an innovation so powerful and efficient, that even the most misoneistic corporations have no choice but to implement it. Electronic signature apps turned out to be one such technology. Though at first they weren’t exactly met with applause – it took e-Signatures couple decades to really take off. But nowadays, it is an indispensable tool for many a business. Allow us to tell you more about this technology and present you our TOP 9 companies that benefit from digital signatures!
What is an electronic signature?
E-Signature software is meant to replace handwritten signatures. It allows you to add legally binding signatures to digital documents. To do so, these services offer an array of corresponding features:
- work with contracts – edit, specify fields for signatures and other annotations, sign, etc.
- send documents to signees online
- secure the data transferred via the e-Sign solution
- (Optional) some, like KeepSolid Sign software, offer neat bonus options, e.g. document templates, status tracking, convenient built-in signature editors, or offline mode
Now, if you are still not sure why (and if) your organization needs e-Signing, let’s resort to our TOP 9 e-Signature using businesses.
1. Tesla
Elon Musk seems frustrated that the need for physical signatures makes his company look non-breakthrough. After a buyer complained on Twitter that they had to wait at the store for more than 8 hours to pick their Model X, Mr. Musk replied that his company is looking forward to shrugging off old-school signing completely.
Once Tesla makes this transition, its clients will no longer have to wait for contracts to sign, and then for those to get resolved. Instead, they will just have to fill the agreements digitally – even from home, potentially. Imagine this not-so-far future: you go to Tesla’s online store, sign the documents online, pay using e-Banking, and then your new car’s autopilot drives itself right to your house. Seeing how Tesla seems to be pushing the narrative of their products essentially being computers with wheels, it only seems natural to engineer their business practices around this.
2. Deutsche Bank
Banks can be considered one of the pioneers of the digital signature use. They were among the first to recognize the potential behind this technology – speeding up paperwork, making it more clear for clients and less expensive for banks, not to mention its inherent security features. With the rise of consumer lending, e-Signing became a life-saver. After all, it’s more cost-effective to digitize your documents than to deploy additional branches and hire more personnel.
Still, some of the most serious documents (e.g. wills or financial contracts) require physical signatures. But this can change soon, as the Deutsche Bank has recently made an important announcement. It ran successful trials of using digital signatures to settle corporate agreements and set up bank accounts. Now they are planning to introduce it for their clients in the US, the UK, Germany, and a number of other states.
3. LinkedIn
Ah, good ol’ LinkedIn… Who of C-suites isn’t familiar with this awesome website, to which all professionals tend to flock? What less people know though, is that LinkedIn is more than just a social network for business people – it actually offers a number of extra services and products. Naturally, they need sales reps to promote those. And, seeing how they are by no means a product company, establishing a whole sales network for this purpose was not the best option.
As you might have guessed by now, they employed an e-Signature solution instead. Now, even a small team of salespeople is able to get contracts signed and deals closed. Also, with this technology they can easily keep track of various documents’ status, which would otherwise be a great pain for any manager.
4. Comcast
Comcast’s primary source of income is B2B sales. Unlike those of LinkedIn, its reps work in the field, literally going door to door to negotiate with customers. They are fully equipped to be able to come to a client and walk them through all steps of a deal, from presentation to signing.
It is for the latter that Comcast salespeople use e-Signature services. With those, they are able to close the loop with the decision maker in one meeting. Striking an agreement in hours or even minutes as opposed to days and weeks is a huge game changer for any organization in the B2B market.
5. Box
Box provides secure cloud storage services for personal and corporate files. When it comes to working with companies, its major selling point is the ability for whole organizations to work with their stored data simultaneously, from any device. This obviously includes working with stored contracts, namely reviewing, editing, and signing them.
Here’s where digital signatures come into play. By implementing them to its cloud technology, Box allowed users to sign agreements right in the storage, or vice versa – to sign them and automatically send to the storage. Combine this with all the added security, end-to-end visibility, and operational speed, and you get quite a kit that both individuals and businesses enjoy.
6. Amway
Although Amway has recently fallen under scrutiny with the FTC, there’s no denying this company has always been a bit of a visionary. The way they sold health, beauty, and home care products quickly became a standard for this industry. Their model of multi-level marketing and selling products via separate distributors means that Amway needs to:
- give those “independent business owners” an ability to close deals on the spot
- have a live information about the IBOs’ contracts and be able to review them
E-Signing is a perfect solution in this situation. Not only can IBOs comfortably work in the field with just their tablet or a phone. The whole process is also very convenient and clear for customers, which is healthy for business and facilitates sales.
7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise
HPE works in storage, networking, servers, support, consulting, and financial services. Its numerous sizeable divisions and branches have to work as a well-oiled machine for the company to reach its goals. Alas, this can be tricky in such a massive organization, where they sometimes have legal documents that must go to almost 90 people for signing. But after they introduced e-Signature technology, time for this process reduced from 2-3 months to a mere 1-2 days.
Another aspect where HPE benefits from e-Signing are their recruiting efforts. This technology allowed them to create a seamless experience for applicants and optimize their onboarding procedures. All with a single stone!
8. Lufthansa
The largest airline in Germany and one of the largest in Europe, Lufthansa deems their customer needs their top priority. For this reason, they develop various programs and implement strategic solutions aimed to allow individuals and companies to manage their travel costs and expenses more efficiently.
Considering this, and recognizing the modern trend of digitization, they embedded e-Signatures in their processes. This, they claim, satisfies modern clients who no longer want to have to print anything or spend their time on the old-fashioned print-sign-scan routine. It’s hard to disagree with their point, don’t you think?
9. Hotel Tonight
The idea behind this service is to bring together hotels (that have 40 percent of their rooms empty on any given night) and customers (who may be on the go and needing a last-minute hotel room, ASAP). Seeing how Hotel Tonight was designed exclusively as a mobile app, they needed a way to close deals with hotels smoothly and seamlessly.
Introducing digital signing allowed them to keep contracts and processes simple and convenient for everybody. After all, every time you make working with you easier, you add one more partner – this is hardly a rocket science.
