e-signature solution for today’s fast-moving, mobile world
After years of
absence, in 2013, Pepsi returned as the main sponsor of the Super Bowl half-time
show, and the beverage industry giant didn’t hold anything back.
With a
performance from Beyonce as the main course, which would include a guest
appearance from her former bandmates of Destiny’s Child, the plans for the show
were as big as they get. After all, the Super Bowl is the most-viewed sports
event in the US and the TV advertisement Industry’s annual D-Day. The stakes couldn’t
be bigger.
The creative
team behind the event knew that such a spectacle needed an intro that was up to
the occasion, and they came up with a bold idea: using it not only as an
introduction to the show but also as a tribute to the fans of the brand. Pepsi then
asked the public to send pictures in specific poses, which would appear in a 30
second TV spot to be cast simultaneously during the TV transmission and at the
stadium screens.
The response
from the public exceeded all expectations. More than 100 thousand people
submitted their photographs, but with the avalanche of submissions came an
equally massive task: to select the right ones for the add and to obtain the owners’
consent for the use of the images.
Getting hundreds
of applicants from all over the United States to sign off the rights over their
images, presented a logistical challenge that could have derailed the project and
turned it into a train wreck. Pepsi needed a solution that allowed participants
to complete the submission form easily, and that made the management of all the
applications and the collection of the notarized affidavits as efficient and
secure for the marketing team as possible.
After trying
different options in the market, it became evident to Pepsi that the online
notarization solution from signNow, which allows for collecting legally binding
signatures through a simple link, was the way to go.
In the end, the submission process and the collection of the signed documents ran smoothly, the TV spot obtained historically high ratings and reviews, and that year’s half-time show is still remembered as one of the best. “We needed a solution that was a secure way to collect notarized signatures of our clients. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been without signNow,” recalls Elisabeth Morse, then Director of Integrated Production at PepsiCo.
Paperless efficiency
According to a G2 survey, signNow
outranks its competition in 10 out of 11 key categories, such as secure
authentication, workflow setup, regulatory compliance, performance, and
reliability. The solution’s more than 60 thousand customers, and over 12
million enterprise users worldwide give signNow an average score of 9.56 out of
10, making it the #1 e-signature solution for large and
small businesses alike.
Why does signNow
get such high marks? The short answer is practicality; the long one is that it
addresses the most essential aspects of any business process, like
cost-effectiveness, time management, workflow simplification, mobility,
security, regulation compliance, and platform integration.
For starters,
signNow allows organizations to achieve the long-dreamt dream of reducing -if
not eliminating- the use of paper in the office. Beyond the obvious
environmental implications, paper also represents a serious burden to businesses’
budgets. An office worker in the US uses 10 thousand sheets of copy paper each
year, 45% of which will end up in a dumpster at the end of the same day it was
used. Only in printed forms, corporations spend more than US$120 billion a year;
most of them become outdated in less than three months. For repeat users, signNow’s
digital e-signature solutions reduce their paper-related expenses to a third.
The cost of
paper is not limited to printing and copying; it also consumes a large portion of
an average worker’s productive time. It is estimated that each office employee
spends 38 hours per year searching for lost documents; at the current US
national average hourly wage of US$22.01, this alone represents a yearly loss
of over US$836 per employee. On top of that, recreating each lost document will
set back a company another $500 in labor costs.
It is also a
matter of corporate security. Paperless processes also remove the risks for
potential loss of information; physical documents -on the other hand- are much
more likely to be misplaced, copied, tampered, damaged, or destroyed. For any organization,
losing a piece of paper containing sensitive information, a signed contract
needed for litigation, or any other irreparable document might have dire
consequences. More than 70% of businesses would fail within three weeks after
suffering a catastrophic loss of paper-based records due to fire or flood.
A matter of time, not place
A much harder
variable to quantify is the toll wasted time takes on businesses. Every time
the effectiveness of an agreement is paused while the documentation is printed,
scanned, and shared in preparation for the sign-off, and the people in charge
of giving the final approval become physically available, business
opportunities are lost, often for good. signNow shuts down the window through
which opportunities escape by reducing processes that tend to take days when
not weeks, to just minutes.
In today’s
hectic, mobile business world, what matters is the when, not the where. With signNow,
the physical location of each person involved in a signature-requiring workflow
becomes irrelevant. The desktop solution can be synced with the mobile app in
seconds, allowing users to start editing documents in their office and finishing
them on a mobile device, even without an internet connection. While offline,
all data is stored in a secure private cloud, and, as soon as the connection is
reestablished, it is synced with the signNow network instantaneously.
When it comes to
signing, signNow makes things as easy as they get: users only need to create
their legally binding e-signature, whether by drawing or typing it, or by uploading
an image from a mobile device or desktop computer. Once created, they’ll be
able to use their e-signature the moment they need it.
Another feature
of signNow that makes e-signature significantly more efficient, is the
possibility of arranging the signing order for as many signatories as needed
based on their roles, in just a few steps. signNow also allows for enabling or
disabling the forwarding of a document, presetting reminders, and setting expiration
dates and passwords for sensitive documents. signNow also facilitates e-signing
on the client’s side through automated guidance, which turns it into an
effortless proposition even for inexperienced users.
signNow
e-signatures are legally binding, and each document update and signature leaves a Court-admissible audit trail. Besides, the solution offers
industry-leading data security and complies with the leading international data
protection regulations, such as EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
the California Consumers Protection Act (CCPA), Payment Card Security Standards
(PCI DDS), The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA),
among many others.
Marlene Novo,
Regional Product Manager at Intcomex Cloud, is a promoter of this solution by
trade, but above all, she is a success case and a happy customer. As a person
in charge of the evaluation, integration and onboarding process of global ISVs
within the organization, she deals with
the ups and downs of negotiating new partnerships, revising contracts, and
getting them approved on a regular basis; adding signNow to her work routine in
the middle of the Corona Virus pandemic was a game-changer.
“We
implemented signNow into our process a couple of months in the COVID-19 emergency,
and it clearly marked a before and after. When we went into lockdown, all the
on-going negotiations got disrupted in one way or the other by the
impossibility of meeting in person with my colleagues. As soon as signNow
became part of our process, things started to run smoothly again, even more so
than before. Now that it’s been months into this pandemic situation, I just couldn’t
picture my job without signNow”, concluded Mrs.
Novo.
For more information on signNow, here.
