DocuSign’s Planning for the Future and Celebrating Past Accomplishments

DocuSign’s January sales and marketing meeting started yesterday. This three day meeting covers what we plan to execute on in 2009. While we’re making plans for the future and celebrating our accomplishments from 2008, I wanted to share with you some of the posts about the more interesting happenings of last year.

Back in June, Jet fuel was over $4.00 per gallon on the US Gulf Coast. Even though I don’t fly a jet (I use DocuSign, of course!), FedEx flies many on behalf of its customers. With this year’s rate increases, the cost of overnighting documents is climbing. DocuSign’s electronic signature service will save you money when compared to FedEx, UPS, or any other overnight delivery service for contract execution.

In September, real estate broker and blogger Kevin Boer discussed how he’s saved his clients time, effort, paper and ink by using DocuSign. Even though his clients travel frequently, all they need is Internet access to execute contracts. He even shared a power point presentation about electronic signatures. Kevin was one of many who blogged, made videos, or otherwise talked about DocuSign

We introduced a new suite of application integration services, DocuSign Connect, in November. DocuSign Connect enables SMBs, enterprises and vendors to integrate DocuSign’s electronic signature and online contract execution platform into any 3rd party or in-house business application, including CRM, ERP, ERM, BPM, and CLP systems. DocuSign delivers the full ‘contract execution process’ (ECE), and saves customers literally thousands of dollars per month by automating and streamlining a highly labor intensive set of manual steps involving postage, scanning/imaging and rekeying data.

The year ended with an announcement from Deutsche Post, the parent company of DHL, that it was shutting down its US delivery operations and cutting 9,500 jobs. Stock market opinion and analysis website Seeking Alpha commented, “After several years of trying to boost its market share, DHL decided that the continued costs of operating their delivery infrastructure did not justify the benefits of having 4% market share. While no one ever likes to see job cuts, in a world when we can easily fax or email documents, how many national overnight carriers do we need?” With technologies like DocuSign’s to provide a secure, reliable way to “ship” documents at a fraction of the cost, how many overnight carriers are really necessary?

Now that 2009 has started and overnight shipping rates have increased, there are more reasons than ever to use electronic signature and online contract execution services like DocuSign. Companies can literally save millions of dollars in overnight shipping expenses. Besides the TREMENDOUS cost savings, companies can complete deals light years faster when compared to the traditional shipping and mailing process, meaning in hours and minutes versus days and weeks. Completed documents also come back error-free and archived for easy retrieval and review.

Perhaps most importantly, leveraging a technology like DocuSign keeps companies environmentally responsible because it eliminates the need to use paper, faxes and/or fuel required for shipping and mailing. In this economic climate, every business must become more efficient. Finding ways to cut costs and accelerate growth will help leading organizations to be more competitive, more secure, and much, much more efficient. DocuSign can help you do both.