Digital Signatures projects are successes

As we all know from personal experience, most IT projects fail to meet their expectations.  A report from the Standish Group says that 51 percent of all IT projects have cost overruns, time overruns, or do not deliver the right functionality to support the business.

The good news? Digital Signature projects tend to do well on these metrics. The technology is now well understood, so your project will be bringing in business benefits without breaking new ground on the technology front.

Digital Signatures have hard and soft benefits. Hard benefits from savings on paper, printers, scanners, FedEx and similar, storage, and retrieval costs. AIIM research on digital signatures shows that 81% of the digital signature projects surveyed achieved their ROI in 12 months or less. And for a startlingly 25%, they achieved ROI in 3 months or less!

Soft benefits

Digital signature projects also provide soft benefits from happier employees and partners, and from faster business process times. While your employees may not jump for joy, they will appreciate it when you replace their boxes of paper files with an easy to use ECM system for managing the digitally signed electronic originals.

Credit: oxfordian.world

Another benefit is becoming more prevalent: competition. I spoke with a customer this week who is automating 100 business processes, including digital signatures for approvals and for document signature. One of his project’s drivers is the competition: his board of directors now realizes that business process automation, including digital signatures, is a “must have” in the 21^st century. Ignore the trend at your peril.

No more floating boxes

A final benefit that I just heard about from a customer in Boulder, CO: his company is in a regulated industry and he’s now in the development phase of his SharePoint, workflow and digital signatures project. His projected savings will be $300,000 per year and “no more floating boxes.”

He clarified: his company was flooded during the 2013 Boulder floods. This included floating boxes of paper records that had to be dried and restored. With digital signatures, the on-line document is the original so no more worries on this front.

PS.  For the latest on digital signatures and SharePoint, or if you just want to hear me live, please join us for an AIIM Webinar on March 12th, “SharePoint Workflows + Digital Signatures: No more paper, Fast ROI.” More information and free registration.