9 Ways DocuSign eSignature Drives ROI

Electronic signature lets organisations create, customise, send and sign agreements digitally and securely. With hundreds of millions of signatures sent digitally, we know that businesses love the speed and ease of e-signature, and so do their customers. 

E-signature drives value for every stakeholder in the agreement process, including customers and employees across sales, HR, legal, and procurement teams. The ease and convenience of e-signature gives customers the connected, digital experiences they crave, while sales teams appreciate efficiency that accelerates the sales process. Compliance teams appreciate the unified, standardised processes that reduce the risk of lost or wrongly executed agreements.

Read more: Electronic signatures: Almost everything you need to know. 

Before we jump in, let’s determine what ROI is and how it can be measured. 

What is ROI?

A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favourably to its cost.  As a performance measure, ROI is used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiencies of several different investments.  

How is ROI measured?

To calculate the overall value that DocuSign has had we typically complete a strategic value assessment that looks at ROI. The three  core elements of your ROI calculation are: 

• Hard cost savings (paper, pens, printing)
• Productivity benefits (speed at which you take work to be completed)
• Revenue upside (the predicted value you gain from this investment) 

You can see what this looks like when put into action by watching our on-demand webinar: Save costs and boost your ROI. 

Here are nine ways DocuSign eSignature drives ROI and creates value for your business and customers.

1. Employee productivity  

Agreements are everywhere in business. DocuSign eSignature gives organisations the ability to do much more than just sign agreements digitally; it also addresses all the obstacles that come before and after the signature. With 90% of agreements still prepared manually, there are a lot of obstacles. eSignature offers the ability to complete agreements in minutes rather than days. Imagine the extra selling time your sales team would have if each salesperson could save even one hour of their daily contract management work.

2. Cost reduction

DocuSign eSignature eliminates the costs that occur due to printing, sending and storing agreements. These costs add up to an average £30 saved per agreement. It also eliminates hidden costs associated with human error and NIGO (not in good order) documents, which can cost up to 4X as much to process as contracts submitted correctly the first time. 

3. Revenue acceleration

DocuSign eSignature removes mistakes and frustrating manual experiences that slow sales. Closing contracts faster means recognising revenue faster. With eSignature, up to 82% of agreements are completed in less than a day, and 50% in less than 15 minutes. Choosing an e-signature solution that also includes the ability to collect payment during the signing process helps any organisation move from contract to revenue faster.

4. Efficiency 

Stop wasting time asking for status updates and next steps on an agreement. DocuSign eSignature allows anyone to track real-time updates about who has (and hasn’t) completed their part of the signing process. If you’re sending the same document to a large number of recipients, you can save time and error associated with manually creating and sending separate documents to multiple recipients with bulk send functionality. Simply import a list of signers and each will receive a unique copy of the same form to sign. 

By approving (or terminating) agreements faster, teams and organisations improve global visibility into business processes. That means less waiting and more time to act. By reducing the assets tied up in outstanding sales, payments and inventory negotiations, organisations can recognise revenue faster than ever.

Read more: Why do I need an electronic signature? 

5. Innovation speed

Adopting DocuSign eSignature accelerates the rate of digital transformation across an entire organisation. By moving away from manual signatures, teams are building the infrastructure necessary to assemble a cutting-edge technology stack. 

eSignature does more than just accelerate signature collection, it also integrates to hundreds of popular business tools and automates painstaking duplicative work. Digital processes increase connectivity among parts of an organisation and give IT better control over the entire system of technology. By committing to this digital transformation, organisations reduce internal and external development cost as well as the opportunity cost of unrealised innovations.

6. Customer experience  

Customers expect fast, convenient, technology-based experiences. Modernising agreement processes and removing the obstacles of disconnected, manual work delivers the frictionless digital experience customers want with little implementation or risk. 

DocuSign eSignature allows your customers, employees and partners to complete agreements at any time, from practically anywhere on a wide variety of devices. Responsive signing functionality adapts document formatting to any device’s size and orientation, so customers don’t no need to pinch and zoom around a shrunken-down PDF to access documents.

7. Risk reduction

Email is one of the most vulnerable platforms for cyber attacks, yet 80% of employees have sent a contract via email. Digitally sending and signing agreements significantly reduces cyber risk and also reduces operational and supplier risk. Storing contracts digitally also reduces disaster recovery risk.  

8. Compliance

DocuSign meets some of the most stringent EU and global security standards— including GDPR—and complies with the EU eIDAS Regulation. Every legally binding agreement sent through eSignature generates and stores a robust audit trail that is court admissible.

9. Environmental stewardship

Businesses that rely on manual, paper-based steps to complete agreements are needlessly wasting time, money and paper. Without eSignature, documents need to be printed, signed and scanned back. Completed documents either need to be stored or shredded. Signing electronically eliminates the need for printing, reducing paper usage and waste. 

Ready to start saving time, money and trees? 

Start using eSignature for free today or watch our on-demand webinar: Save Costs And Boost Your ROI and learn how Nationwide Building Society is saving costs and driving ROI in its day-to-day business.