Tips to choose a new digital signature solution

As the traditional paper-based world gives way to global digital businesses, documents often require signatures to be collected from people across the world, both employees and external partners or customers. To address this issue, organizations are demanding innovative solutions that help them get rid of paper altogether.

While many companies are already using document management systems, the final step of getting their documents signed usually breaks the otherwise fully-automated workflows by requiring users to print and sign with pen and paper. Not only does this prevent companies from gaining the full benefits out of their investments in automation, it also adds unnecessary delays and expenses to what can be a completely digital process.

What these organization need to solve the problem are easy-to-use tools for digitally signing and authenticating documents and forms. The solutions they are looking for must be able to quickly transform the organization’s paper-intensive processes to paper-free ones by:

• Reducing costs.
• Speeding up signature-related processes in order ensure prompt turnarounds.
• Enabling everyone inside and outside the organization to sign anytime from any device.
• Promising the same level of security and trust that exists with conventional documents.
• Offering a rapid Return on Investment (ROI) and a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Prior to selecting the digital signature solution that best suits your organization’s requirements, there are several important questions that you need to ask yourself. This white paper outlines the 10 most critical issues that you must take into consideration before making this decision. While not all are obvious, they are make-or-break factors for the smooth implementation, management and use of such a system, impacting every aspect of your business processes.

Each organization has different business, IT and security requirements when it comes to the way it implements a digital signature solution. Therefore, the best solution should allow you to choose between an on-premises server and a managed cloud-based system so that you can set up the system according to your internal needs. While an on-premises solution ensures maximum flexibility and control, a secure cloud-based system enables you to start small and expand the number of signers as needed.