The outbreak of Covid-19 will make remote work the only plausible way for business and government to function.
Digitisation can help reduce the risk of exposure to germs, contagious diseases and many other health concerns for many companies, writes Maeson Maherry, chief solutions officer at LAWtrust.
Cyber security companies are now introducing elements that can substantially improve how we conduct business in a more secure and controlled environment.
Digital signatures, in the wake of Covid-19, is a necessity for business, government and institutions. Digital signatures are a fundamental tool within various sectors for verifying the authenticity of documents, their signatories as well as enhancing the trust between the parties involved.
The extent to which digitisation can improve the quality of life for both the business, its workforce and its customer experience is exponential.
Traveling is a big component of business for many top-level management personnel, the ability to communicate and access documents, information and data across different mediums virtually means your workforce is protected from the high risks associated with traveling these days.
For companies, the push to utilise digital signatures is informed by a number of factors:
Accountability
It is essential to be able to trust that all parties will keep to their commitments so that business can proceed. Therefore, business has a need for accountability, just as the business must be held accountable to deliver on its part of the arrangement.
Accountability has both a technical and a governance element to it which can be explained as follows: Firstly, any individual or entity that is anonymous cannot be held accountable, therefore it is a common business practice to conduct some level of identity proofing on customers, staff, suppliers and customers.
This step of verifying who you are doing business with before you do the business is a key element of reducing business risk. In most electronic signatures solutions on the market today, there is no ID proofing step and this is something that has to part of a secure signature solutions.
The second element of accountability is to ensure that only the intended signatory can sign their name. Since passwords alone are recognized as weak security, it is important to add an additional factor of authentication to every signature, to protect against impersonation.
LAWtrust’s electronic signatures have afforded corporates high assurance and security, by offering ID proofing and various options of strong authentication as part of the solution. Finally, protecting the integrity of a company’s data is one of the key benefits of secure digital signing.
The protocols implemented in secure or advanced digital signatures include trusted time stamps that seal the data and the time of the signature along with long term validation of signatures, so that signatures can be validated over the long term to meet corporate retention requirements.
The security of your data could also be the one element that reduces your chances of exposure to threat actors. Through ID proofing and identity security, these high assurance signatures are a way to make sure that the person in question is really who they say they are. With greater accountability comes more protection and greater quality outcomes.
These standards based, globally trusted signatures guarantee business efficiency and allow for future proofing in instances where evidence needs to be presented.
Environmental factors
With globalisation rapidly affecting global eco-systems, many have had concerns over increased consumption of products and what it means for the environment.
The evolution of technology has led to positive strides geared towards an environmentally conscious transition into efficient, digital resolutions as a counter to the wasteful practices that have informed how we do business and ultimately how we live our lives.
Developments in the technology sector have made digitisation an unassuming ally in the fight against global warming. Corporates are promoting the idea of virtual workspaces which intrinsically means less resources being wasted.
Digital signatures cut out the middle man, with documents being circulated in a secure, transparent and certified network for signing, proofing, reviewing and editing. The use of storage spaces for files, incorrect data capturing linked to human error and the costs, time and effects of transporting documents from one place to another are enormously cut down.
Digitisation means one can do more while using less. Ultimately, the environmental impact is reduced.
Customer experience
Customers want the option to interact remotely in order to minimise health risks through contact exposure, but also provide convenience by being allowed to interact when and where they feel like.
On a fundamental level, digitisation has created changes within the business sector that have put the customers at the forefront of service. This can be done by:
* Creating great customer experiences, through the convenience that comes with interacting digitally which leads to faster turn over in results.
* Removing the administrative demands within a business and affording a company the efficiency needed to counter the administrative woes experienced. At the end, this gives you more time to attend to the needs of the consumers.