Could e-signatures be the key to improving your procurement process?

Efficient procurement strategies drive business productivity and profitability. A productive and seamlessly functioning supply chain is essential to creating a healthy bottom line of any business. 

As businesses cope with the reality of remote work and continue to scale their operations, procurement teams are under increasing pressure to work faster and harder, making the need for efficient, streamlined procurement processes more important than ever before. 

Luckily, automated digital methods like e-signatures give procurement teams the power to improve their operations and reduce overall costs. Here’s how. 

E-signatures let businesses reach more people, faster

E-signatures facilitate quick and easy management of supplier contracts, enabling procurement teams to close deals and secure goods and services faster and while scaling their operations. 

Suppliers can sign agreements from wherever they are in the country or the world, while employees are freed from manual tasks associated with hard copy paperwork. 

Procurement teams no longer need to wait on others to be able to do their jobs as waiting times are reduced to hours, not weeks or months — e-signature company DocuSign reports an average 80% reduction in turnaround time, with 82% of agreements signed in one day. 

Reduced procurement costs

Gone are the days that businesses are required to manually manage each stage of the procurement process, from printing to scanning to posting. 

A manual contracts process costs businesses money as well as time. Transitioning to a paperless workflow means companies can save on postage and courier fees in addition to saving time on the hundreds of documents procurement teams are required to send each year and minimising the risks of unseen costs a manual system can introduce. 

To learn more about how e-signatures can lead to better procurement management take a look at DocuSign’s eBook Top Ten Ways that Businesses are Creating Value

Improved efficiency and automation

Switching to an automated, digital solution like e-signatures is a highly effective way of scaling operations and reducing overall running costs. With the click of a button, procurement teams can send agreements to everyone at once, rather than going through the motions of printing, scanning and posting (and waiting for agreements to come back for execution). 

Businesses looking to broaden their procurement opportunities stand to benefit from implementing a digital, cloud-based process that allows documents to be accessed quickly and easily, wherever  stakeholders are in the world. 

Here’s just a few of the sourcing and purchasing agreements businesses can manage with a digital e-signature solution:

• Requests for proposals
• Master service agreements
• Purchase requisitions
• Statements of work
• Supplier compliance
• Non disclosure agreements 

Stronger security and compliance 

In the rapidly changing landscape in which many businesses operate, it can be a challenge for procurement teams to stay on top of regulatory requirements and ensure that these are being met both internally and with suppliers.   

By implementing an e-signature process procurement teams can be confident they are establishing supply chains that are fully compliant with regulations. 

An e-signature program that gathers all internal and external stakeholders and enables all parties to operate with maximum transparency helps guarantee that nothing is missed and all clauses and other safeguards have been covered by agreements. 

Improved supplier relations

Automated invoicing and payment systems means procurement teams can secure payments faster, with greater accuracy and transparency with equal benefits for businesses, suppliers and vendors. 

The improved experience for suppliers and vendors is an added bonus that ultimately adds up to better relationship management thanks to a more accessible and visible process for all, from external stakeholders to internal teams. 

Read now: How eSignatures help businesses drive revenue and increase efficiency