Published on the 26/10/2016 | Written by Anthony Caruana
One of the great lies of the IT industry is the paperless office…
As we all embraced electronic communications and carried tablets around, the need to chop down trees and spill ink was expected to go the way of the dodo – expelled from the world with barely a second thought.
But ask any major printer maker or paper manufacturer and they will tell you: business is booming. We print more documents than ever before. One of the big drivers for that, other than old habits dying hard, is the need to capture physical signatures.
So, while, a recent survey of over 200 Australian business and IT decision makers (by Adobe and Forrester Research) found over 100 million electronic signature transactions are projected to be made annually in Australia by 2020, fewer than 20 percent of Australian businesses are currently prepared for this outcome.
As someone who recently bought a house, I was amazed that I was expected to print and sign multiple pieces of paper – I was even asked to fax documents to someone, a sure indicator that many sectors still see paper as king. That’s despite the Australian Tax Office accepting scanned and electronic documents as legitimate records.
Aside from the obvious saving in paper and printer costs – the survey respondents projected a 15 percent cost operational saving – e-signatures have the capacity to introduce massive productivity and efficiency benefits for businesses. Digital real-estate company, the REA group, is embracing e-signatures as they drive towards making the processes of buying and selling properties smoother for vendors and purchasers.
More broadly, the survey found close to 70 percent of both IT and business people acknowledge that having a complete digital experience is important. Clearly, integrating the ability for documents to be signed electronically is part of this.
One of the concerns for many businesses is the legality of e-signatures. According to a white paper published by Adobe a number of legal documents can be signed electronically and accepted as legal documents. This was addressed back in 1999 when the Australian government passed the Electronic Transactions Act.
The one area of law that is not entirely clear when it comes to e-signatures is how the witnessing of signatures is to be conducted. This might explain the reticence of some agencies in accepting e-signatures.
There’s also the issue of integration of electronic signing systems and processes with other applications. This is being addressed by many software providers, such as Salesforce, that integrate with Adobe’s services as well as those from others such as DocuSign.
As well the benefits to businesses wanting to use e-signatures to improve processes and customer satisfaction, there’s a significant market opportunity for developers and system integrators to deliver e-signature solutions to the market. Forrester says fewer than 20 percent of organisations have an eSignature solution that completely addresses their needs and over 80 percent are either partially addressed or not addressed at all by existing technology solutions.
