Most organization are short on human and financial capital but overabundant in investment opportunities. As a result, investment opportunities usually compete quite fiercely for the precious resources needed to execute them. When it comes to an investment in e-signatures, the model for justification is still evolving and many hidden benefits are not considered in building that competitive business case.
Let’s explore ways to insure your investment proposal is funded, and even better, asked to accelerate as a top priority of the business.
A board member in a prior company and an ex-CFO told me that in his role as a CFO, he viewed himself as the venture capitalist for his organization. Whether he was evaluating a requisition for new computers, recommendation for changing health insurers, or a new product development proposal, he always considered which investments had the biggest potential to help the organization meet its financial goals. What really stuck with me though was he generally gave priority to investments which drove top line revenue growth versus those which saved operating costs.
I believe e-signature investments can be better positioned by focusing on their impact to top line revenue. For example, what’s the value of being able to save 8 minutes in a new account opening process? Well, that means that you add a virtual sales person for every 60 applications/day you process. What’s the expected revenue associated with enabling or adding more sales time?
You should always look at how the esignature implementation can retain more clients or help you close more business. One thing that is often overlooked is the “image” value. I have had clients in the past that promoted the use of e-signatures in their sales process to attract top talent. It was viewed as a leading edge sales tool and projected the company in a better, high-tech light. With a stronger, more effective sales force you would expect higher sales, wouldn’t you?
I can tell you that when the banking industry talks about the “branch of the future,” it doesn’t include paper. That image can be projected now – whats the value of a better, more efficient image in terms of new customers?
Further, people want to do business with companies whenever and wherever. How much additional revenue can be generated by making your products and services available easily and comfortably on-line through a home computer or on an iPad use in a coffee shop ? Our strategic signing platform can help companies with this. Again, this is topline revenue growth.
After revenue growth and its associated contribution, I would then look to security or loss prevention savings. Without question, e-signed documents from SOFTPRO are more secure than their ink and paper counterparts. Any alteration to an e-signed document can be detected automatically, signer identity verified, and signature validity confirmed. Organizations often have trouble producing signed paper documents because of document management challenges. What’s the cost of write-offs due to lack of evidence?
Increasingly, privacy requirements and the risk of exposure if sensitive customer data is comprised presents a large risk for corporations. By moving to completely electronic processes, the risk of compromise from manual transportation of paper records and their exposure to public mishaps is greatly reduced. E-signature solutions can also be marketed as an initiative to enhance the security and privacy associated with doing business with the organization.
Compliance departments highly appreciate electronic signature implementations as e-forms can have significant logic built-in to insure appropriate document sets are generated and completed, required fields are populated, and all signatures are executed. In some industries, non-compliance approaches 40% of transactions and the cost to correct is significant and a key contributor to the business case.
Finally, you should also thoroughly examine how broad the investment can be leveraged. Typically, esignature implementations are well adopted and organizations can’t move fast enough to automate other processes. Assuming the investment can be used throughout the organization, getting a good handle on these potential business applications will be a multiplier and give the investment a label of a strategic investment that can be leveraged across the organization.
In closing, you always can fall back on the more easily identifiable saving associated with operating cost savings – reduced cycle time, lower labor, eliminated paper , and reduced transportation and shipping. These savings are generally significant and easiest to identify, but it’s the impact on top line revenue that will elevate the importance of the investment.
Ready to make your esignature investment a priority? Contact Us.
Additional ROI information can be found on SOFTPRO’s website.
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Competing for Resources? Make eSigning a Priority.
Most organization are short on human and financial capital but overabundant in investment opportunities. As a result, investment opportunities usually compete quite fiercely for the precious resources needed to execute them. When it comes to an investment in e-signatures, the model for justification is still evolving and many hidden benefits are not considered in building that competitive business case.
Let’s explore ways to insure your investment proposal is funded, and even better, asked to accelerate as a top priority of the business.
A board member in a prior company and an ex-CFO told me that in his role as a CFO, he viewed himself as the venture capitalist for his organization. Whether he was evaluating a requisition for new computers, recommendation for changing health insurers, or a new product development proposal, he always considered which investments had the biggest potential to help the organization meet its financial goals. What really stuck with me though was he generally gave priority to investments which drove top line revenue growth versus those which saved operating costs.
I believe e-signature investments can be better positioned by focusing on their impact to top line revenue. For example, what’s the value of being able to save 8 minutes in a new account opening process? Well, that means that you add a virtual sales person for every 60 applications/day you process. What’s the expected revenue associated with enabling or adding more sales time?
You should always look at how the esignature implementation can retain more clients or help you close more business. One thing that is often overlooked is the “image” value. I have had clients in the past that promoted the use of e-signatures in their sales process to attract top talent. It was viewed as a leading edge sales tool and projected the company in a better, high-tech light. With a stronger, more effective sales force you would expect higher sales, wouldn’t you?
I can tell you that when the banking industry talks about the “branch of the future,” it doesn’t include paper. That image can be projected now – whats the value of a better, more efficient image in terms of new customers?
Further, people want to do business with companies whenever and wherever. How much additional revenue can be generated by making your products and services available easily and comfortably on-line through a home computer or on an iPad use in a coffee shop ? Our strategic signing platform can help companies with this. Again, this is topline revenue growth.
After revenue growth and its associated contribution, I would then look to security or loss prevention savings. Without question, e-signed documents from SOFTPRO are more secure than their ink and paper counterparts. Any alteration to an e-signed document can be detected automatically, signer identity verified, and signature validity confirmed. Organizations often have trouble producing signed paper documents because of document management challenges. What’s the cost of write-offs due to lack of evidence?
Increasingly, privacy requirements and the risk of exposure if sensitive customer data is comprised presents a large risk for corporations. By moving to completely electronic processes, the risk of compromise from manual transportation of paper records and their exposure to public mishaps is greatly reduced. E-signature solutions can also be marketed as an initiative to enhance the security and privacy associated with doing business with the organization.
Compliance departments highly appreciate electronic signature implementations as e-forms can have significant logic built-in to insure appropriate document sets are generated and completed, required fields are populated, and all signatures are executed. In some industries, non-compliance approaches 40% of transactions and the cost to correct is significant and a key contributor to the business case.
Finally, you should also thoroughly examine how broad the investment can be leveraged. Typically, esignature implementations are well adopted and organizations can’t move fast enough to automate other processes. Assuming the investment can be used throughout the organization, getting a good handle on these potential business applications will be a multiplier and give the investment a label of a strategic investment that can be leveraged across the organization.
In closing, you always can fall back on the more easily identifiable saving associated with operating cost savings – reduced cycle time, lower labor, eliminated paper , and reduced transportation and shipping. These savings are generally significant and easiest to identify, but it’s the impact on top line revenue that will elevate the importance of the investment.
Ready to make your esignature investment a priority? Contact Us.
Additional ROI information can be found on SOFTPRO’s website.
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