Right now, thousands of extremely clever people, backed by billions of dollars of expert investment, are working very hard to change the way business is conducted. Internet and mobile providers have ushered in a boom in technology platforms that reach nearly all areas of our lives – jobs, homes, leisure and even romance. This has happened through the facilitation of three major activities.
They are as follows:
- Information provision – Wikipedia, the BBC website and online newspapers are examples of online information engines.
- Transactions – Information is the key input in the due diligence phase of any transaction. Shopping online was the next natural phase of technology development. Paypal, Amazon and online banking are examples of internet and mobile techonology being used as a medium for the exchange of money, goods, and services.
- Management and control – PCs, tablets and mobile phones are potential dashboards for controlling electronic functions. The Internet of Things (IoT) allows objects to be measured (information provision) but also sensed and/or controlled remotely across the existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities to adjust or turn systems on or off remotely.
For example, Google’s 2014 acquisition of Nest to create a Google IoT division was seen at the time, as the setting in motion of many thought processes for Imagineering the likely future of logistics, retail, real estate education, leisure, etc. Using new tools, like e-signature solutions in old-school areas of business can provide a much-needed boost to market speed and administrative cost reduction. Let’s take a look at the list of business areas that need this boost the most.
Real Estate
The Said Business School, Oxford’s first real estate research report, maps this emerging sector and focuses on the impact of tech change on the character of this enormous asset class. The FinTech industry, in particular online payment systems, crowdfunding equity and debt platforms and online exchanges, provide the foundation for a large part of this revolution. A great deal of relevant work has already been done in several places around the world at once. With the use of an electronic signature, the real estate industry can enter the party, using the lessons learned from what works and what does not in the wider world of banking and engineering. Prior to 1930, the government imposed minimal paperwork burdens on real estate. During the New Deal period and World War II, government intervention in the economy increased. Along with this increase in government intervention came an increase in paperwork. The cost of the increase in paperwork leaped from $1.2 billion in 1950 to $30 billion in 1975. In 2017, the average mid-sized real estate agency spends 22% more than the same sized firm 30 years prior, and predictions forecast that these numbers will grow 12% per year. New online ventures like crowdfunding, informed the real estate market about the time and money that can be saved with the use of new online tools, like the e-signature.
Financial Institutions
During the 2015 World Economic Forum report, The future of FinTech (produced in cooperation with Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford) was defined as “the use of technology and innovative business models in financial services”. KPMG and CB Insights’ The Pulse of Fintech Report (2016) suggests that while FinTech covers a diverse array of companies, business models and technologies, companies generally use e-signature technology in the Personal finance and Wealth management industry. E-signature helps individuals manage their personal bills, accounts and credit cards as well as their personal assets and investments. The financial sphere could easily benefit from the use of e-signature with money transfer and remittance, including the use of peer-to-peer platforms to transfer money between individuals across countries. Institutional capital markets such as banks, hedge funds and mutual funds ranging from alternative trading systems to financial modeling organizations, can also use e-signature technology to cut the cost and time spent on signing and sending physical documents.
Medical Care
The Government’s paperwork burden on Medical Care comes to roughly $357 billion, with an implied paperwork cost ($69 billion and 11.5 billion hours.) The IRS forms accounts for $257 billion ($34 billion and 9 billion hours.) These astronomically high costs have given way to a huge argument for the medical industry to go paperless. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the CERT Program to produce a means of Complying with Medicare Signature Requirements. Since then, Medicare FFS reviews medical records for compliance with Medicare coverage, payment, coding and billing rules. The guidelines for using an electronic signature include protections against modification and should apply administrative safeguards that correspond to standards and laws that say providers must use a qualified electronic prescribing system.
Insurance
Using the standard definition of billing and insurance-related costs (BIR), bureaucratic paperwork costs for BIR range in the amount of $70 billion. Hospitals spent an estimated $74 billion on BIR, and other institutions, such as nursing homes, home health care agencies, prescription drug and medical supply companies spend an estimated $94 billion on these money-chasing tasks. Private insurers spent $198 billion on BIR whereas public insurers and other government-sponsored programs spent $35 billion on such activities. By adopting a simplified system of obtaining signed documents, 80% of insurance game itemized expenditures would disappear. That would also free insurance agencies from administrative waste.
Education
Electronic signatures for education help schools work faster, go green and greatly reduce costs as well as the paperwork, resources and time associated with traditional paper and ink signatures. By using electronic signatures for education, schools are expanding student services, improving financial performance, enhancing operational visibility and reducing costs. The result is better management of communications for campus activities, improvement of the student life cycle, research, grants, financials, operations, human capital, procurement and assets. The main set of rules regarding the use of e-signatures in education is collected in the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’S STANDARDS FOR ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES
Save money, time and focus on the activity
These are not the only areas that could experience a reduction of direct costs for printing, overnight deliveries, couriers, copying, filing, storing, etc. The main benefits of acquiring an online signature solution for any business are:
- Client and Partner satisfaction
- Increased security
- Increased efficiency
- Increased efficiency
- Long-term investment
- Going green
E-signature solutions like SignNow can provide immediate application processing and help with positive user experience for partners, clients and new staff. Many SignNow customers sign while on the phone with sales reps. This shortens the average time to sign from 6-14 days to mere minutes. SignNow lowers the amount of friction for a signer to close a transaction by making it simple for them to do so, from anywhere on any device. On average, SignNow improves close rates by more than 5%.
The costs associated with physical paper are around 25 cents per document and $20 per document if being sent elsewhere. The most common costs are for printing, sending, and storing documents. This does not include any of the costs associated with replacing documents, correcting errors and other hidden hazards in the signing process. These are the most costly aspects of any signing transaction.
