The pandemic crisis demanded transformation. Businesses had to go digital and use all the online resources possible to keep the wheels turning. Meanwhile, the world was introduced to the new normal – virtual meetings and digital signatures. Gradually, the importance of sending documents to the dedicated person and getting approval grew higher. Moreover, another important task was to keep a track of the timestamps and identity of the signers. Digital Signature solutions, therefore, saw rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, catering to the emerging demands of the world. Cygnature is a brand name of the digital signing solution developed by Cygnet Infotech.
Cygnet Infotech, established in 2000, is a software development company with the mission to passionately empower lives globally with technology-enabled business solutions. In 2017, Cygnet, under the leadership of its Founder Niraj Hutheesing, decided to invest in developing a unique solution for electronic signing that would help companies to digitize their signing processes in various departments like legal, finance, operations, sales, procurement, and HR. Thus, Cygnature was born. The vision for Cygnature is to offer the widest range of signature types in a single solution to cater to the global audience. It offers electronic, digital, and biometric signatures along with National ID-based signatures. It also uses one of the emerging technologies Blockchain as a backbone to store the audit trail of the signing transaction.
Comprehensive Signature Solution
Cygnature is a SaaS solution that allows users to select different types of signatures depending upon the purpose or the sensitivity of the document or the legality of the signatures. For instance, users can use simple electronic signatures for intra-office approvals, digital signatures for business contracts, and biometric signatures for financial transactions. They can also use legally valid national ID signatures such as Aadhaar e-sign in India and UAE Pass in UAE.
Furthermore, Cygnature provides a comprehensive digital footprint of the signing transaction which includes the timestamp, browser version, operating system, IP address, and even the latitude and longitude of the signer. Moreover, the hash of the documents is stored in a blockchain thus giving an added layer of security and trust. Apart from the cloud-based subscription, Cygnature can also be deployed on a private tenant or on-premises – which gives a greater choice of flexibility to the customers.
Prioritizing Innovation
Embracing innovation is one of the major factors for a company to thrive in today’s cutthroat competition. Heeding to this, Cygnet has made innovation a priority. The use of blockchain is one such innovation. Cygnature uses a private blockchain that stores the transaction audit trail and the hash of the documents. The blockchain can be expanded to include smart contracts in the future. For this innovation, Cygnature has won the Best Blockchain Product award at the Vibrant Gujarat startup summit in 2018 and 2019.
Alongside, Cygnature uses virtual video sessions for gathering signatures. As people cannot meet physically to sign documents, it created a LIVE Cygnature session in which multiple parties can sign the document in presence of each other via video conferencing and screen sharing. Moreover, the solution combines the use of bots to improve the efficiency of the signing process for sending documents in bulk to vendors or employees. This is particularly useful for organizations with large employee or vendor base. These bots have helped some of Cygnature’s customers to significantly save time in getting the documents signed.
Adjusting to the New Norms
Cygnet saw a steep rise in new customers and custom requirements since the beginning of the pandemic. Thus, managing rapid growth during this time of high demand was a major task. Combating the challenge, it put in more resources to strengthen the delivery team. Presently, the company is reprioritizing some features in its roadmap to work on those that will bring in the maximum benefit to its customers and prospects. Moreover, as a company, Cygnet is establishing a network to reach out to customers in different countries and regions.
Besides, the pandemic presented several other challenges for the company. Shutting down offices and enabling work from home for a thousand people over a few days was a difficult task. Its employees, however, cooperated well and its admin and support staff did commendable work in getting things working in the new normal. Cygnet initiated regular webinars to keep in touch with the employees. Realizing that constant work from home was leading to stress and unhealthy habits in employees, it also started several information sessions via the HR channel. “Overall, it does seem we as a company have adjusted ourselves to this new normal,” says Yogesh Lokhande (VP Strategy at Cygnet Infotech).
Bolstering the Portfolio
In the past two decades, Cygnet, under the leadership of Niraj Hutheesing has grown from a small 2 person company to a multinational with over 1000 employees and has served medium to large organizations across the globe. With customer and employee retention as the forte, the company has been on a mission to offer the best technological solutions to solve the clients’ business needs. Presently, it is focusing on tax technology solutions and innovative solutions such as Cygnature, Testing Whiz, and Automation Whiz.
As the business head of Cygnature, Yogesh’s primary responsibilities are managing rapid growth, driving client-centric innovations, and maintaining customer satisfaction. In the near future, Cygnet is aiming to offer a compliance module for pharma companies to help them meet the 21 CFR Part 11 FDA compliance for GxP documentation. As pharma companies work towards developing a vaccine for the corona virus, Cygnet strives to support them in their work by helping them keep an audit trail of their work processes through this compliance module. The company is also planning to offer cutting-edge capabilities to Cygnature including integrations with Zapier and Microsoft solutions in the coming months to allow other solutions to access Cygnature more easily.
Embracing the Emerging Technologies
Yogesh asserts that the year 2020 has compelled the world to think differently and work differently. He says, “From the smallest to the biggest economic transactions will now be aided by more sophisticated technologies.” Looking at 2021 and the years beyond, he believes that the big corporations, as well as SMEs will embrace these emerging technologies in the conduct of their regular businesses that will ease up their lives. He adds that solutions with a better value proposition and the ability to deliver better results will get an opportunity to grow in 2021.
Award-Winning e-signature solution: Cygnature
The unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 has led to cancellation of several board meetings and urged several corporate governance teams and board of directors to manage their work through collaborative technology. In the current situation, e-signed copies of written resolutions using digital signature solutions become as a handwritten signature.
Cygnature is an award-winning e-signature solution that can help you in this situation to signboard resolutions and keep the business going. Cygnature supports multiple signers and multiple signature types. It is easy to use a cloud solution where all your signature trails are stored securely on a blockchain making it very safe and tamper-proof.
Are E-Signatures Legal?
The answer to this foremost question is “Yes”. Most E-sign acts of various countries have accepted electronic signatures as having legal validity. It represents the electronic signature and electronic records carry a similar weight and similar legal effect as the conventional method.
At glance, Digital signature provides unparalleled efficiency, greater saving and authentic way to sign documents while keeping all your records compliant.
How it Works
To sign the resolution, the administrator/secretary can upload the resolution that needs a signature. Directors are getting notification that signature is pending in resolution. Administrators can check the pending status of document signing and email the signers with a reminder. Directors can e-Sign it by using a digital signature solution in a click from any device at any place. This is how digital signature simplifies eSignature workflow.
Read Full issue: The 10 Innovative Digital Signature Solution Provider 2021
