Posts Tagged ‘paperless’
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
I recently came across a great column called “Katrina’s Corner: 30 Days of Green” on the Montville, CT Patch, an online publication that provides community-specific news and information about events, local businesses and more. In light of Earth Day, which happened on April 22nd, writer Katrina Cribley decided to dedicate the entire month of April to “30 Days of Green” and provide environmentally-friendly tips every day.
In her “Day 28: Go Paperless” post, Cribley gives tips for reducing paper clutter in the home or office, thereby also reducing waste and increasing efficiency. Quoting New American Dream, she shares that “more than 100 million trees’ worth of bulk mail arrive in American mail boxes each year — that’s the equivalent of deforesting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every four months.” Crazy, huh? Her post goes on to offer a variety of ways to cut paper, such as opting out of junk mail, catalogs and other unwanted paper that arrives in the mail. She also gives tips on going paperless in ways like switching to electronic billing. If you’d like to read more, check out Cribley’s column. Enjoy!
Tags: Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, environment, paperless
Posted in Digital Signatures - General | No Comments »
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
I recently found a very interesting article on HealthcareIT News that reports on a study involving the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program. The study explores how digital identities, digital signatures, and cloud computing accelerate clinical trials and lower costs, and it was reportedly examined by government officials around the Obama administration’s new National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace initiative.
The article highlights how digital signatures “guarantee the integrity of documents…by protecting every bit of information from being changed.” In the study, electronic documents were being stored in the “cloud,” enabling researchers to access the information quickly and securely and authorize the documents using digital signatures. This 
eliminated the need for sending physical documents via courier service or fax solely for the purpose of obtaining signature approvals, thus expediting processes and significantly reducing costs. If you want to read more, check out the HealthcareIT News article.
Tags: clinical trial, Digital Signature, digital signature research, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, Healthcare, paperless
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
If you’re in a
regulated environment like the Life Sciences, then you know how difficult and expensive it can be to automate your processes and attempt to cut costs while maintaining compliance. What you may not know is that NextDocs has been providing organizations like yours with digital signature-enhanced solutions for those exact purposes.
On April 12th, you can join NextDocs in a free webinar called Regulatory Document Management with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and learn about how addressing the requirements for compliantly managing regulatory documents in life sciences is possible. Among the topics addressed will be the role of digital signature use with SharePoint 2010 for automating signature-dependent processes while meeting 21 CFR Part 11 requirements. Don’t miss out on this exciting and informative event happening April 12th at 9 a.m. (EST) and 1 p.m. (EST).
Tags: compliance, Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, Life Science, Microsoft, paperless, SharePoint
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, April 1st, 2011
Faster business processes, saved money, increased environmental friendliness… it’s nice to think of all the many benefits organizations get to enjoy when they go paperless. But when a bunch of people outside the organization also get to enjoy a number of paperless benefits, like fewer lines at the airport ticket counter, well, that’s just glorious.
It’s already been a few years since some European airlines like Lufthansa went paperless with their boarding passes. Now, it seems, North America-based airlines are also making the big transition. A recent article in the Denver Business Journal reports on United Airline’s expansion of their “mobile check-in and mobile boarding pass capability” to international travelers, a service they’ve already been offering to domestic travelers at 62 U.S. airports. This paperless initiative means international travelers along with domestic travelers will be able to avoid paper, airport kiosks, and lines at the ticket counter by having their boarding passes sent to their smartphones. Sounds to me like far smoother traveling. Cheers to paperless airlines!
Tags: Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, paperless, United Airlines
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Not long ago I wrote about an interesting article I’d read on The Economist website on how some state and local governments are in serious financial trouble due to the recession, and I wondered: Why don’t more governments, many of whose processes are already electronic, embrace digital signatures? To my great excitement, it seems they are!
A press release published today reports on the County of Hawaii’s use of CoSign digital signatures. Members of the Legal department, including attorneys, investigators, and accountants, have made the switch to paperless approvals and are now experiencing considerably reduced process times. Martha Rodillas, the Private Secretary to the Corporation Counsel at County of Hawai’i, explains that employees “used to walk into [her] office every 30 minutes with paper documents for a wet signature approval, which could sometimes take a two-day turnaround time. With CoSign, it takes two seconds.” That’s a huge improvement! Check out the press release to find out more about how the County of Hawai’i is benefitting from digital signatures.
Tags: CoSign, Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, Government, paperless
Posted in Digital Signatures - General | No Comments »
Friday, January 7th, 2011
I never understood why would anyone employ an electronic document management system that doesn’t have digital signature capability. Without it, users of such popular solutions as Microsoft SharePoint still have to print documents for authorization, which means routing (and routing fees), re-entering data, extended process times, and a slew of other costly and time-consuming inconveniences. Fortunately, with ARX’s free digital signatures with SharePoint trial, SharePoint users that are still in the dark about the many benefits of digital signatures can finally see the light.
The free SharePoint digital signatures trial allows users to digitally sign Microsoft Word and PDF files located in SharePoint Document Libraries, as well as SharePoint List Items. By eliminating the need to introduce paper into electronic processes 
for obtaining signature approvals, SharePoint users can get a taste of truly paperless operations while maximizing the return on their investment in business automation, cutting costs, and improving collaboration and efficiency. Thanks to the free SharePoint digital signatures trial, all of these benefits and more are up for grabs at no cost or risk whatsoever. Now how about that.
Tags: Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, free, free trial, paperless, SharePoint, SharePoint digital signature, trial
Posted in Digital Signatures - General | No Comments »
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Time is precious, right? We spend so much time trying to control time as best we can – whether we’re trying to make it pass more quickly (is it lunch time yet?), or save it, or get it back when it’s lost. When it comes to going paperless with digital signatures, cutting costs and ridding ourselves of burdensome processes like stapling, stamping, manually routing, scanning, and filing aren’t the only benefits we’re after. In most cases, cutting process times is of the essence.
In an AIIM study called Digital Signatures for Document Workflow and SharePoint, the leading authority in the field of document management and workflow automation asks 196 respondents who do not use digital signatures how much time is added to their workflows because of the need to obtain paper-based signature approvals. Here are the results:
For 68% of respondents, at least one day is added to process times solely because of the need to obtain paper-based authorizations. For 23% of respondents, the added time is an entire week on average. Think about those figures next time you’re wondering whether digital signatures could actually cut your process times and keep your business moving. How much time are paper-based approvals adding to your workflows?
Tags: AIIM, Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, paperless, survey
Posted in Research | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
If you’ve been following my blog, you may have noticed the occasional mentions of AIIM, the leading authority in the field of document management and workflow automation. In fact, just a few posts ago I discussed part of AIIM’s great research about the benefits of digital signatures. Today, I welcome you to feast your eyes on Digital Signatures – Coming Soon to a Document Near You, an interesting and resourceful article that was published in AIIM’s e-Doc Magazine.
The article opens with a short overview about what digital signatures are and why they’re needed. This follows with a brief discussion of key points to keep in mind when looking for a digital signature solution. If your organization employs an electronic content management (ECM) system, you might be interested in the section called “How will digital signatures fit in your ECM and Workflow solutions?” But regardless of whether or not you use an ECM, this article is full of useful information about digital signatures and how digital signature technology can reduce costs and expedite processes.
Tags: AIIM, Digital Signature, digital signature research, digital signatures, ECM, electronic signature, electronic signatures, paperless
Posted in Research | No Comments »
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Have you noticed the growing trend of organizations adopting electronic content management (ECM) or document management systems in order to turn their business operations electronic? (If not, where have you been?) Even FIFA, the international football (soccer) association, uses digital signatures integrated with their ECM to enable electronic approval of invoices (in bulk!), saving them endless hours of paper-based signing.
So, what happens when the need for a signature arises and an organization’s ECM lacks a digital signature component?
Reintroducing paper into the workflow after having invested in business automation tools like ECMs shrinks the sought-after benefits of the investment, which can be quite pricey. Among other disadvantages, it increases costs and process times, and decreases efficiency and productivity. Fortunately, one of the greatest aspects about today’s digital signature technology is that it can be integrated seamlessly with popular ECMs, like Microsoft® SharePoint®, at a fraction of the cost.
By implementing a digital signature solution into an electronic content management system, you can gain the greatest benefits from your investment in automation – like never having to print out another piece of paper again solely for obtaining a signature approval. This will lower your costs and expedite your business, while enabling you to remain legally compliant. Using a digital signature rather than an electronic signature solution even avoids vendor lock-in; digital signatures are standards-based, which enables anyone, including outside parties, to view and verify the digital signature. Pretty cool, huh?
Tags: CoSign, Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, paperless
Posted in Digital Signatures - General | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 14th, 2010
It’s easy to understand why digital signatures can do our businesses a lot of good (through expedited processes, enhanced collaboration, eliminated paper-based costs, etc.). But even with this understanding, facing the step of purchasing a digital signature solution might still leave us wondering, “Will this pay off?” Too bad we’re not psychic, right?
If you’re considering adopting a digital signature solution at your organization, taking advantage of the digital signature ROI white paper is like gaining the psychic ability of seeing into the future of your investment – minus the spooky bit.
This thorough ROI white paper
is extremely useful for calculating whether a digital signature solution is viable for your organization. In addition to some background info about automating processes, it provides a template for calculating the cost of paper-based signatures, as well as for calculating the total cost of ownership of a digital signature solution. With this information, it’s possible to calculate the return on investment (ROI) your organization can expect to gain from implementing digital signatures. To this end, the ROI calculation spreadsheet that’s included also comes in very handy.
Tags: Digital Signature, digital signatures, electronic signature, electronic signatures, paperless, ROI
Posted in Digital Signatures - General, Research | 1 Comment »
