As we wrap up this year, many of us are looking to 2022 and what the year will have in store for our respective industries and businesses. For most of us, tech innovations and trends are at the forefront of our plans and considerations.
Since the beginning of 2020, companies and business owners have closely watched the tech industry. While tech is always perpetually moving full-steam ahead, the global pandemic has swiftly and (some would say) permanently changed company’s usage, prioritization, and demand of technology solutions. Electronic signatures have played a significant role in this recent increased demand of business tech solutions, and this is not expected to slow down. In fact, over the next five years, the market value of electronic signatures is expected to quadruple.
But how do electronic signatures tie in to some of the most important tech trends expecting to impact businesses in 2022? Let’s take a look.
Tech Trend: Increased Use of Tech to Personalize Healthcare
In the past two years, the healthcare industry has experienced a transformation from conducting mostly in-person services to seeing a tremendous increase in remote visits. While the increased availability of online services is important and impactful to continued growth in healthcare, focus is expected to be placed on enhancing, simplifying, and improving the connection and support aspects of online healthcare visits for patients.
How Electronic Signatures Can Help: As digital healthcare visits are expected to increase, it’s important to hospitals, practitioners, and their patients that processes are as simple and user-friendly as possible. Electronic signatures provide the capability for healthcare providers to allow for secure, HIPAA-compliant, and fast completion of digital documents. Not only can patients sign and send from wherever they are, but physicians can approve and send prescriptions and medical records in a matter of seconds.
Tech Trend: Increased Hybrid Working Solutions
Hybrid working is a term you’ll probably increasingly hear. The way businesses, teams, and employees work and collaborate has changed. In efforts to better accomodate the needs of employees, as well as meet demands for health and safety amongst the pandemic, many companies are developing and implementing plans for a hybrid of both telecommuting and in-office options.
How Electronic Signatures Can Help: Electronic signatures allow everything from essential HR paperwork to customer contracts to be signed and sent in minutes to their respective parties. Thanks to eSigning capabilities, employees don’t need to be in the same office, or even in the same city, to get things done quickly and effectively.
Tech Trend: More Automation Solutions
2022 will certainly be the year that we see an increased demand for useful and powerful automations. Businesses and their customers are looking to get more done in faster and more impactful ways. Expect to see higher implementations of automatic processes and self-serve options than ever before.
How Electronic Signatures Can Help: Electronic signature solutions, like Foxit eSign aka eSign Genie, provide the capabilities to intelligently integrate document completion into practically any workflow that requires it. Websites can embed signing into their websites to allow for things like purchase completions, donations, contracts, and more to be initiated and completed all by the clients themselves with no required employee guidance; this not only speeds up processes for employees, but it also frees up valuable employee time and allows for more focus on other tasks.
Tech Trend: Enhanced Digitization Efforts
The digital age is definitely here. Everywhere you look, you’ll notice a significant decrease in traditional methods and an increase in digitization. The fact is, things like music, documents, and pictures are more often being created, shared, and purchased in digital formats and all signs point to this being the norm for the foreseeable future.
How Electronic Signatures Can Help: eSigning provides businesses and their clients the capability of quickly creating, sending, and signing important documents securely and quickly from practically anywhere in the world. Not only are digital documents easier to send and sign than traditional pen-and-ink documents, but they are also easier to store and share amongst parties as needed.
Tech Trend: Increased Push for Green Technologies
Environmentally-friendly and sustainable practices are important to modern businesses. More businesses are looking for “greener” solutions to that not only support their individual goals but that also add value to their business services. More often than not, better sustainability options for businesses come in the form of new tech options and software developments. Business owners and industry leaders are expected to seek solutions that support sustainability and reduce their environmental impacts.
How Electronic Signatures Can Help: By moving paperwork processes to digital, companies will not only reduce their paperwork costs but they will also reduce their environmental impacts. Corp Magazine reported reported in 2015 that “U.S. businesses waste $8 billion annually just managing paper,” meaning businesses can stand to save a lot of money by switching to electronic signatures and skipping paper documents.
Tech Trend: Focus on Tech Security
Unfortunately, the reality is that tech security threats are out there and only increasing in numbers; because of this, businesses in 2022 are expected to ramp up their security efforts in an attempt to thwart digital attackers and prevent data theft.
How Electronic Signatures Can Help: When you choose an electronic signature solution, such as Foxit eSign aka eSign Genie, you can count on your data being kept secure from send to sign and beyond. Not only is Foxit eSign aka eSign Genie SOC 2 Type II compliant but documents are locked and secured with 256-bit encryption, as well as stored in only the most trusted of U.S. and E.U. data centers. Additionally, users are given additional security tools, such as 2FA and KBA, which enable more personalized and effective control over security efforts.