DETERMINE YOUR REAL ESIGNATURE ROI

eSignature deployments, like any new technology initiative, must have a tangible benefit associated with it. Organizations often ask how to accurately calculate the return on investment (ROI) when it comes to e-signatures.

Although industry standard formulas will often produce very impressive cost savings, look beyond those numbers in order to truly see the value of esignature technology. Electronic signatures can help generate revenue, improve processes and support compliance.

Here are a few things to consider when evaluating esignatures:

1) Process Analysis: Look closely at one paper process and analyze where the inefficiencies occur. Once you've identified the pain points, you can then easily determine how to streamline your processes and project the savings in both time and money. Some of the hard costs to consider include: raw paper cost, storage costs, shipping expenses, and the effect on your NIGO rate (not-in-good-order). Also determine the amount of time employees spend on managing paper and calculate the benefits of shifting some of their time to more productive activities.

2) Top & Bottom Line Impact: An e signature solution can have a significant impact on both the top and bottom line. Look at how the technology can reduce processing times, which helps generate additional revenue. Enhanced productivity has a tangible value that must be considered in determining the overall ROI.

Consider how the bottom line is improved by generating a customer account or getting approval in minutes instead of hours or days. These tangible process improvements lead to higher customer satisfaction and retention, the key factors to selling additional and more profitable products.

Compliance: By integrating e-signatures within your e-processes, you can ensure that all required esignatures are captured before a process can continue. This can greatly reduce the NIGO rate, eliminate the additional mailing costs incurred when documents must be sent back to customers or field offices for completion, and increases the ability to close business faster.

Long and Short Term Goals: After seeing the benefits of capturing esignatures in one particular process, other applications can be identified and automated. After all, capturing esignatures can happen in-branch, in-the-field and even online - so it can expand to any business environment and across all channels. To avoid having to deploy numerous solutions to verify esignatures, make sure the chosen electronic signature solution scales with the organization’s needs.

Conclusion: eSignatures are often the "glue" that allows an organization to fully utilize other electronic processes and gain maximum value from previous IT investments. For example, a document management and archiving system can only be fully utilized when a process is truly end-to-end. Why print an eform to capture an esignature; keep the process electronic. Interlink's esignature technology helps organization achieve an enterprise-wide paperless environment, bringing cost savings and enhanced productivity far above the initial investment of deploying e-signatures.