One of the hardest things about using electronic signatures in enterprises seems to be getting started. Or, as it was once put to me, “How do I justify putting this in my top 10 projects that will actually get done this year?”
One way that I think works well is to just begin by using one of the easy, hosted services for a couple of the occasional needs that you may have. I use Echosign, a pioneer in this area, for executing NDAs and the like in my personal business. I have found that the people that I send them to are ok with this, it is faster, and gives me a signed electronic document so that I don’t have to keep as many faxed copies and originals on hand. In fact the money saved on FedEx can probably pay for the service!
I would suggest that anyone considering electronic signatures can easily get started by using a hosted service provided by one of a few providers. You can start with just something relatively simple like NDAs that probably run outside of your standard workflow system anyway. And once you get started you will find that a number of signature suppliers already integrate with the top CRM or ECM systems. If you use Salesforce.com, the current version of Echosign supports it. Of course you would have to upgrade from the free version that I use for my small business! (0;
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The biggest reason we see adoption in business is that automation nearly always provides a good ROI as more work can be done with less staffing.
While NDAs are fine, unless you sign lots of them, automating that saves you little. But if you have a sales agreement, or hire lots of employees, or do a lot of financial documents (leases, debt refinance, etc.), these can be automated.
And you have to think beyond just electronic signatures to all of the benefits of electronic contracting: firming up business processes, providing greater insight into your process flows, gathering data and using that data in other systems or just running reports, ability to find documents easily with search keys, no filing cabinets, etc.
I am in complete agreement on this. I think that doing a small, relatively low value prototype of the process on something like NDAs may help overcome institutional inertia and help get internal champions for its deployment throughout the enterprise.