Businesses ill-prepared for e-signature boom

Electronic signatures will be an increasingly important component of the way Australians conduct businesses in the near future, research from Adobe indicates.

A survey of business and IT decision-makers in the country estimates that over 100 million e-signature transactions will be made annually in Australia by 2020, a five-fold increase in three years. This would represent one in every 10 global e-signature transactions.

The technology is expected to become a commonplace and standard method of authorisation in a range of industries, including banking, real estate, manufacturing and hospitality.

But less than 20% of Australian business are currently prepared for this outcome, with 68% yet to implement e-signature technology of any kind.

Adobe Head of Document Cloud Solutions Chandra Sinnathamby warned that businesses failing to prepare for mainstream adoption of the practice risk foregoing their share of the expected 100 million transactions annually.

“The results of the research are clear — Australian businesses need to embrace e-signatures, as customer expectations around convenience and efficiency change,” she said.

Nearly all (92%) of respondents to the survey felt that adopting e-signature technology could help their organisations save up to 15% of their IT operating costs. If they decide to adopt an SaaS offering, 86% would prepare the service to be hosted within Australia.

Adobe is rolling out a new data centre in Australia in response to this finding.

Image courtesy of CeBIT Australia under CC