Published on the 19/10/2023 | Written by Heather Wright
Fujifilm Business Innovation A/NZ win highlight growth market….
Kiwi and Australian companies are rapidly embracing digital signatures and reaping the returns, including cost savings and improved employee productivity.
Cameron Mount, Fujifilm Business Innovation New Zealand general manager of process automation, says both markets have seen a significant increase in adoption of digital signatures in the past 12 months, with DocuSign research suggesting 95 percent of companies are already using eSignatures or plan to do so in the future.
“Digital signatures are instrumental to creating better processes, regardless of the industry or company size.”
“Signing documents digitally is becoming the new norm,” Mount says.
Fujifilm has just been named DocuSign’s 2023 Reseller Growth Partner of the Year for its contribution to building adoption of eSignature technologies across the region.
DocuSign’s growth in process automation solutions at FBNZ contributed significantly toward the award win, with local revenue from the solutions doubling over the past year.
“With DocuSign, 80 percent of documents are signed in less than a day,” Mount says.
“It’s an easier and more convenient process for customers and employees working remotely. It also saves money by removing hard costs and improving employee productivity.”
The company’s online digital signing solution cost savings calculator suggests a company handling 25-49 documents a month with a 16 day document process, could save $1,350 and 93.75 hours a month, and reduce turnaround time to four days.
Electronic signatures have been recognised by law in New Zealand, for most purposes, since 2002. In Australia, the government formalised legislation to permanently adopt electronic signatures – along with digital execution and video-link witnessing – in place of ink and paper last month, more than two years after temporary measures were introduced as a pandemic measure.
The bill means all documents required to be signed under the Corporations Act can be signed electronically and most documents to be sent electronically.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has been taking a ‘no action’ position against companies using eSignatures on regulatory submissions, though many legal firms advised clients to return to wet-ink signatures to avoid uncertainty.
The Australian government says digital statutory declarations could save more than AU$156 million each year, along with hundreds of thousands of hours.
Mount says many companies adopt DocuSign for employee and customer onboarding, creating a better sign-up experience and eliminating the need to scan paper documents.
“It works across most industries, but we have seen the fastest uptake in traditionally document-intensive sectors like banking and finance, government, construction, healthcare and education,” he adds.
While digital signing is most commonly used for agreements, Mount says the full signing process isn’t just that final step of getting a signature.
“A contract starts with information collection to generate a document, then negotiation, then signatures and finally long-term retention.”
Mount says DocuSign’s contract lifecycle management product enables all those steps, along with web forms, ID verification, user friendly mobile app and security features required for government and enterprise customers.
“Digital signatures are instrumental to creating better processes, regardless of the industry or company size,” he says.
Docusign’s research found that security was a key factor for companies which were using eSignatures, just ahead of improved productivity and the ability to do business faster.
Improved experiences for stakeholders, reduction in document turnaround times, improved storage and retrieval of contracts and the ability to work anywhere also featured highly.
