This past week I was traveling and a lot of business came up that required my signature. That’s good, but signing documents the old fashioned way is not. When you are on the road, printing a document, signing it with a pen and then either scanning and emailing or faxing it is not convenient. Most everything I do for business uses the cloud and so should my transactions.
Early in the week, I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Anyone doing business is used to that. I needed to get this in place quickly before visiting a prospective customer. The customer’s legal department sent me the nondisclosure using DocuSign. I got a link in my email, read through the short document and signed it on my phone. Since I’ve used DocuSign before, my electronic signature was already in the system. One click and it was off to the next signer. It took me longer to read the document than the time it took for the whole transaction. Everyone got a signed and sealed document in email once we were finished.
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The impact of cloud computing is a profound change in how we live our lives and conduct business. Whether in an office or on the road, accessing information on demand is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity. It doesn’t matter if I’m purchasing a book on Amazon or trying to find the latest sales data from my CRM system. If I can’t access information when I want it and in a format I like, I’ll find a company that provides it to me in the way I want to consume it.
Because of these market shifts, just about every business is talking about the cloud. Companies are responding to cloud computing in very different ways. Some are transforming the way their entire business operates and some are just adding cloud to brochures. For some its strategic and for others its just a checkmark to add to a list of product features.
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Being a Boston sports fan isn’t always easy, but whether the teams win or lose, communicating through the cloud makes it better. Last night the Boston Bruins ended a 39 year drought by winning the Stanley Cup and I felt like I was there with thousands of fans. Obviously watching it on television gives one a sense of being there, but sharing the experience with people through the cloud makes it feel more real.
I was watching the game on TV, but was also sharing the experience on Twitter and Facebook. I had friends and acquaintances from all over the US and the world sharing information, commenting back and forth and making it feel real.
When I thought about experiencing these events a few years ago, things were very different. The last time the Bruins won the Stanley Cup I was in grade school. Twitter didn’t exist. Facebook didn’t exist. In fact, the Internet didn’t exist, except for a few US Department of Defense companies and researchers. The founders of Facebook weren’t born yet. One of the founders of Twitter was born, but he was only a few months old.
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Credit cards and financial data are the currency of the realm today. 50 years ago a measure of wealth was a large roll of cash. Today it’s credit. Most of us use our credit cards for just about everything. I use mine to buy food, gasoline, clothing, prescriptions, movies and everything I buy online. So if someone steals my credit card number, that can put me into a world of hurt.
Recently Citigroup suffered a massive data breach where 200,000 customers had their names, credit card account numbers and email addresses stolen. It’s unclear if the thieves got the expiration dates and CVC (card verification code) from each card, but the other information is still problematic. If the thieves can’t use the cards outright, they can start a spear phishing campaign to target the customers. Security experts are predicting that this type of crime will increase in the coming year as batches of credit cards stolen in the last few years begin to expire.
With the recent attacks against Citigroup, Sony and others, its very likely that you or someone you know was compromised. So imagine my surprise when last week I looked online at one of my credit cards and noticed two very large charges for merchants I never heard of.
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I had the opportunity as part of our new strategic partnership to attend the recent DocuSign Summit 2011 held at the Hyatt Regency SF Airport. The major takeaway from the Summit was the rapid and broad adoption of eSignature that is occurring. With the continued regulatory environment supporting the use of eSignature both domestically and internationally it is clear that in time this will become a common way of executing transactions. From a security perspective authenticating and approving processes and transactions will become the norm, since it provides high levels of security and an detailed audit trail. The rate of adoption is growing exponentially!
At the Summit there were multiple education sessions and case study reviews including ID Check Authentication, real estate transactions, loan application, as well as many other multiple general business process improvement examples. Also there was new emphasis on Mobile eSignature and data security opportunities. There are numerous new application partners working with DocuSign to build integrations. I had the chance to spend some time with multiple integration partners including Salesforce.com, to learn more about how we at eDocument Sciences and several of our other partners can help you understand the many opportunities to improve the efficiency and security of your business through the use of eSignature.
Check out some of our recent articles on how to use eSignature.
And while you are at it, check out the free trial on DocuSign.
