How much time do you usually spend buried in business documents, signing them? How much cost do you have to incur to get everything ready, including hiring a courier service to retrieve contract documents?
Although these questions seem trivial, signing all kinds of documents is an essential part of your everyday life as a business player. In a conventional practice, the process of signing a document goes through several stages: printing the documents, signing them with a pen, and ultimately sending them back via email or courier services. The process of relaying the signature until it reaches the designated receiver requires certain procedures which are not just time consuming, but also require you to spend a considerable amount of money.
These complex stages can take hours, and even days if your business partner is out of town. Moreover, the security risks involved should also be considered if you deliver documents via courier services. For example, the documents could be tampered on the way or even get damaged if the packaging is not secure enough.
This long and risky process can be easily avoided by converting from manual to digital signatures. Your business efficiency is sure to improve significantly. The benefits you can gain from digital signatures are certainly not limited to the two aforementioned points. What are the other advantages of using digital signatures?
1. Time Saving
You can spend less time printing, scanning, and storing documents, up to the delivery process by a third party. Signing and sending documents from wherever you are makes the same process finish in a few minutes only.
2. More affordable
You no longer need to allocate certain amount of money to buy paper, pens, printer ink, and not to mention expedition and storage fees. As long as you have a smartphone or a computer connected to the internet, signing and sending documents can be done without additional costs.
3. Legally-binding
The legality of digital signatures in Indonesia is enumerated under Law No. 11 Year 2008 Chapter 11 Verse 1 (UU No. 11 Tahun 2008 Pasal 1 Ayat 1) on the Electronic Information and Transaction as well as Government Regulation No. 82 Year 2012 Chapter 52 Verse 1 and 2 (PP No. 82 Tahun 2012 Pasal 52 Ayat 1 dan 2) on the Execution of Electronic Systems and Transactions.
The aforementioned laws explain that digital signatures act as authentication and verification tools in an electronic transaction. Digital signature is a valid indication of the signer’s agreement of electronic information and/or electronic documents signed with the corresponding digital signatures. In other words, digital signatures hold equal legal validity and legal effect as manual signatures, as long as they abide to a certain qualifications.
4. Secure
The use of digital documents significantly increases safety by eliminating the threat of both document and signature forgery. Other than that, the use of digital signatures also minimizes the risk of documents getting lost or damaged. Needless to say, the confidentiality of digitally signed documents is well-protected since the delivery process happens instantly without the involvement of a third party.
5. Environmentally-Friendly
It would be an exceptional merit if everything we do, including business and work aspects, contributes to the environmental conservation. Eliminating printing and delivering processes also means reducing the use of fuel and paper in your everyday life – one thing that will happen automatically as you convert to digital signatures.
6. Promotes business expansion
The use of digital signatures creates a modern style business. Numerous first world countries such as the USA, Australia, and countries in the European Union have recognized and approved the use of digital signatures in legally binding business documents. This situation taps into an opportunity for you to broaden your business scope to a global extent. More over, if your business partner happens to be on the other side of the world, digital signature services enable you to acquire their legally-binding signature without any of you needing to fly to another country.
