Leveraging an Electronic Signature Process in a Remote World
By Justin Perkins
Today many of us are having to adapt to new living and working environments. Moving to a remote setting, I know I personally lacked certain tools which would have prepared me for such a shift. One area where this becomes glaringly obvious, at least when it comes to contracts and contract management, is the signature process. In my discussions with organizations looking to improve the time to contract completion, a common pain point is the signature process, and that has only been exasperated by our current situation.
Consider these questions.
- Do you use a paper or hard copy signature process for some or all your agreements today?
- If so, do you know that every person responsible for a signature has the tools they need at home to complete this business function? Do they have a printer? Do they have a scanner?
In my case, it had been so long since I printed anything that I didn’t even realize I was out of printer ink. Of course, this could become an IT person’s nightmare given the potential number of individuals across a business who might be involved in the signature process and need supplies.
This is where an e-signature solution can make a big difference, and many companies today are urgently making e-signature a bigger piece of their signature process.
Companies today are urgently making e-signature a bigger piece of their signature process.
Where allowed, leveraging e-signature affords the ability to sign from any device, quickly and efficiently. You remove all the barriers of a hard copy signature process when you don’t need to print, sign, scan, and route to the next person. With e-signature, the individual simply signs, and the tool takes care of everything else, from moving to the next signer to making sure everyone receives a final signed copy of the agreement.
Along with ease-of-use, a huge side benefit of the e-signature process is a faster time to completion. And don’t forget that when you use a hard copy signature process, you are not just slowing things down on your side of the deal, but the same steps are happening with the company you are trying to do business with. In many cases companies are shocked at how much quicker contracts are able to get executed with an e-signature solution.
And with contract management software from Contract Logix, once you electronically sign a contract it is automatically married back up into the system. You completely eliminate this manual and sometimes overlooked step which makes your life easier while reducing risk, version control, and compliance issues.
Takeaway:
Signatures on agreements are critical for any business – they are the lifeblood of a company and the quicker you can execute an agreement, the quicker you can begin a relationship with the client. Sign, complete, and move on. Why add three or more additional steps to the signature process, which can drastically slow things down?
With remote work a fact of life, save everyone time and effort, and help your organization move quicker by adapting an e-signature process today. Want to learn more? Schedule a demo of our contract management software and we’ll show you how easy it is to streamline and automate CLM.