Challenging Times Call for Smart Approaches to Business

We live very challenging times. CRM magazine recently published an interesting article by Lauren McKay called ‘Spend your way out!’ with a very interesting chart, reproduced below:

Source: CRM magazine

This visualization describes the level of risk associated with various types of projects, depending on the state of the economy. Essentially it defines what is important to businesses in 4 quadrants.

I think most would agree that our economy is in the ‘weak’ column. This chart shows that companies like DocuSign need to align to a shift in customer focus to Compliance and Efficiency quadrants. This is actually excellent news because DocuSign is really ABOUT these two quadrants, and our benefits list reads like the bullets there. Our customers are seeking electronic signature and online contract execution services because DocuSign enables them to be more efficient, and improve compliance, and save money. In a previous DestinationCRM article Yamaha’s SVP of Finance Adminstration, Brian Jemelian discussed his experience with DocuSign:

Another surprise was the improvement in accuracy and visibility that the automation brings to Yamaha and to the process.

The article also makes some interesting statements that I can relate to this year. CEO Umberto Milletti of InsideView says “Customers right now are looking for guidance and a way through the recession.” This is very true, and the value DocuSign brings with our experience cutting costs for large Fortune 100 companies comes in very handy in times like these. DocuSign is a proven tool saving literally millions for our customers each year.

Also B2B market researcher Dan Adams says “Executives need to step back and say, ‘Where am I wasting resources?’” This is a critical question when companies need to tighten the belt. What we have found is that unlike other solutions which have a net cost to an organization for increased operational efficiency, DocuSign actually costs less than what they were doing before! The way we do this is to REPLACE the ‘wasted costs’ such as FedEx, re-keying data, scanning, and manually storing and handling paper. Smart companies can deploy DocuSign, cut back on these costs, and actually be MORE efficient in a matter of weeks.

The article is very bullish on SaaS offerings like DocuSign because they require no infrastructure investment, and can be deployed and have an impact rapidly – very important in this economy. For example, overnight delivery costs and manually processing documents have been increasing in cost due to high fuel prices. These transaction costs can add up fast and hit your profit margin really hard because they are tied to every transaction you do. With DocuSign, that cost will be reduced immediately.

To help you realize cost savings and beat the overnight shipping rate increases NOW, we’re currently offering a special deal – give me your 2008 overnight shipping bill, and I’ll set you up with a DocuSign account for 20% of that cost for the same volume of business, and I’ll deliver it round trip much faster! 80%.

Regarding an increasing focus on compliance, DocuSign’s Chief Legal Officer, Ken Moyle, has written a white paper that describes the DocuSign electronic signature in the context of state, federal and international standards for legal and enforceable electronic signatures. You should expect to hear more from Ken, as he’ll be joining me on the blog, providing his insight to how ECE can dramatically lower compliance risk and cost.

In these challenging times, DocuSign usage is growing quite rapidly despite the economy – due directly to our extremely positive and rapid impact on our customer’s bottom line. For smart companies it is almost like DocuSign is an ‘antidote’ to this down economy.