The pixel is mightier than the pen

The catalyst for digital transformation can vary widely across organisations but for Kamal Hathi, the global CTO at DocuSign the significant trigger in the last two years can be symbolised as ‘dirty pen syndrome,’ courtesy of the pandemic.  

He told Digital Nation Australia the rare confluence of confined masses and inaccessible signatories, a growing phobia and rejection of print-based materials and the fear of the ‘dirty pen’, recalibrated the mass appeal of digital signature platforms and with that the immediacy of the need for an overarching digital transformation strategy and tools that facilitate that.  

He said that prior to the pandemic, the company was already gaining real momentum in having the world adopt digital artifacts, signatures and contracts.

“In fact, we've had a lot of involvement in influence on regulations across the globe and it was already a really important initiative for many governments and corporations but the pandemic absolutely made it an imperative. We went from something that people were considering to something that just became a must do,” said Hathi.

The pandemic represented the point of no-return for businesses and governments needing to circumnavigate physical and geographic restraints and cumbersome multi-layered approval processes.   

“I think it's pretty clear. No one wants to go back to paper. Nobody says, ‘I want to go back to the good old days where we had to sign this thick ream of paper to buy a house or have that untrusted pen lying around’. So, I think it's accelerated, that acceptance and the demand and it's pretty clear that what was an emerging trend now has become clearly, not just a trend, but an implicit requirement for how we do business as digital contracts, agreements, are no longer optional,” he said.

A powerful adjunct to that shift was the notion of hybrid work which Hathi maintains has also been the catalyst to wide scale digital transformation. “Digital transformation is something that used to be maybe, a ‘nice to have’ project but suddenly it's become an imperative because you cannot be remote or hybrid without being digital. You have to be really, really digital. So digital transformation is a real thing and it became essential.” 

He added that with the digitisation of contracts and agreements has come the need for security in infrastructure and creating a culture of trust.  

The new waves of demand that emerged from the pandemics’ enforced shift to digital tools and platforms were not about surprises, but about accelerations he said.

“The things we have seen is that not only do people want digital signatures, but they want the entire agreement, life cycle, post and pre signature to be covered. They want to know things such as, how do I capture the information in my agreement, update my systems, update my Salesforce or my SAP or my dynamics or whatever it is they want to get insights into. How many of these agreements are being signed and is any fraud taking place?” 

Given the lack of standardisation in digital readiness globally, Hathi said that the biggest blockers to digital acceptance and transformation have been regulatory hurdles, but ultimately sees this impediment as very temporary. Hathi claims that DocuSign has been central in helping shape the shifting regulatory agenda for organisations and governments.

“Regulations are rapidly going away and as maturity of digital adoptions are rapidly increasing, we are seeing more and more demands from people who want to really take advantage of this transformation opportunity.” 

Prior to the pandemic, Hathi said that there were two types of organisations, those with big budgets and huge digital transformation agendas, with an office of transformation and highly paid system integrators, but despite the high-end budgets they committed to little progress. And then there was everybody else. 

“Now the word digital transformation is not just something that is part of somebody's plan, but it's part and parcel of everybody, no matter how big or small the company is. Sometimes they don't call it digital transformation, it might be making it possible to go online or how do I make it seamless for my employees or my partners to work with me when they're remote, whatever it is.

“The switch you've seen is going from ‘strategic things’ to the ‘knee jerk’. And I think it reflects the maturity of where we are as an industry, all these things you work on that are being digital is not a novelty anymore.” 

Security and trust concerns aside, the cultural shift in mindset still lingers however.

“Some people see that act of signing actually means something symbolically and you can see this in governments as a great example. There's symbolic value to the pen, you know and maybe it's mightier than the sword. And if you are seeing, you know, more and more see, especially private sector, that's no longer the case and no one really cares about the symbolism.”  

But Hathi maintains transformation is not just about the inception of the process or project.  

“It's being in the midst of it and accepting it and learning from it. And that's what we are seeing in that cultural shift.”