With remote working likely to be in place for the foreseeable future, the benefits of doing so can be seen, however in the long term this can also impact on the workflow and communication in a business. This is often the case when you are working with standard paper-based signatures, which can lead to slower transactions, increased costs and frustrated customers and employees. 

These problems can easily be resolved through the use of an electronic signature solution such as Adobe Sign or DocuSign which can be used in your business to allow you to streamline the signing process and make it simpler to communicate across your business and to your employees and customers. More importantly, it will give remote workers the ability to electronically sign and return documents from anywhere on the planet, from any device. 

So what is an electronic signature and how can it be used? 

This is as simple as it sounds as you can use an electronic signature to sign documents online, without the need to manually sign paper-based documents. Furthermore, electronic signature software can be used across all the agreements that your business has in place with customers, suppliers and employees. Like with manual signatures, an electronic signature demonstrates clear evidence that the signer is agreeing to the terms and conditions laid out in the document and is therefore legally binding and secure. 

Furthermore, an electronic signature solution will allow you to: 

• Seamlessly integrate with other apps and document management systems 
• Make use of ready to go templates 

So just how can an electronic signature solution help support remote working? 

• It will help to improve efficiency and time management – With speed the key for many businesses these days, the use of electronic signatures will speed up the process of getting signed documents back from key stakeholders quickly and efficiently without any errors. 

• It is convenient and flexible - Given how wide-reaching businesses are across the world, it makes sense to be able to send documentation to anyone, anywhere where it can be signed electronically at a time that suits them. 
• It is safe and secure – With many businesses usually sending out highly confidential & sensitive data to be signed and returned, it is of vital importance that this is secure and safe. Whether it’s a sales contract or NDA that needs a signature, doing it digitally means that sensitive documents can be encrypted. 
• It is legally binding – Using an electronic signature solution can allow different multiple parties in different jurisdictions to complete agreements in a perfectly valid, legal way. All electronic signature solutions comply with UK law, the European Union Regulation No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS Regulation), as well as international laws and statutes. 
• It allows a clear, digital audit trail to be created – Creating a new process can often create conflict which can be problematic when a business wants to continue to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible. However, this problem can easily be resolved as an electronic signature is able to be embedded into most of the systems and apps that your business is currently using. You are able to pull together documents in a number of different formats and then upload them to a range of file sharing sites allowing them to be easily accessed.  

Next Steps? 

With the clear benefits achieved with digitising your signatory processes that support remote working, switching to an electronic signature solution such as Adobe Sign or DouSign should be the next logical step for your business to take. In order to get the ball rolling, please get in touch with our team of IT experts today! 

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