Success in the Australian channel rests on two things: bringing a compelling offering to market, and making a whole-hearted commitment to the local network of resellers, distributors, and other value-adding partners.
A world leader in digital agreements management, DocuSign, has hit on what it believes is the winning approach to both: giving partners deep capabilities to tailor solutions to the unique needs of their customers, and providing the necessary sales and technical support in the background.
DocuSign is growing rapidly throughout Australia and Asia Pacific. With Sydney as its regional headquarters, it now has more than 120 local staff. A crucial driver behind that growth has been the rapid signing of new channel partners. The company has now signed 66 active partners, which are looked after by four dedicated channel account managers.
The company has also developed a comprehensive partner program incorporating training and marketing support. The vendor is also actively encouraging local creative thinking and innovation in the market, by actively partnering with ISVs to develop new solutions that can integrate with its platforms.
“The ISV opportunity driven by platform providers with industry specific solutions is an exploding opportunity within our region,” DocuSign area vice-president, business development and channels at DocuSign APAC, Lisa Munnings, said in an interview with ARN. “This is a key value proposition for DocuSign as the market leader in eSignature."
Bringing end-to-end agreement solutions to the channel
A new DocuSign solution that the company expects to resonate strongly with the channel is the DocuSign Agreement Cloud. Announced in March, the solution aims to automate and connect the entire agreement process. The openness of the platform means local channel partners can build their own value-add and value proposition over the top to the benefit of customers.
“You have a system of agreement whether you realise it or not,” DocuSign COO, Scott Olrich, said when introducing the solution at the DocuSign Momentum conference. “Agreements sit at the very centre of business. Those systems of agreement have not [previously] been modernised for the speed of today’s business.”
The DocuSign Agreement Cloud – and other DocuSign products – go well beyond the eSignature that the company is traditionally associated with. DocuSign Click, for example, is an automated system that allows users to capture consent for no-signature-required website agreements. This form of agreement is critical to online businesses now that major markets such as the EU require organisations to capture consent for the use of cookies and other data-gathering activities targeting those that visit the business’ website].
Other new solutions include DocuSign ID Verification, which securely automates the verification of government-issued IDs and European eIDs for sensitive transactions, and DocuSign Gen for Salesforce, which natively integrates the DocuSign technology into the entire Salesforce platform.
Through DocuSign, channel partners can deepen their engagement with customers and develop new, productive, and efficient solutions around CRM, HCM, ERP, and other core systems within the business process.
The local channel is already taking full advantage of this opportunity. Of the 66 partners on the DocuSign partner program, 29 are ISVs that have created integrations with DocuSign across verticals as broad as real estate, construction and financial services.
Helping Australian companies do better business
Forrester research shows Australian companies have a lot to gain from improving their agreement processes. In addition to “soft” benefits around an improved customer experience (CX) and better security and compliance, Forrester found Australian organisations that adopted DocuSign as a management tool have seen a 1.35-hour improvement on every internal transaction, and a reduction in not-in-good-order (NIGO) errors of 90 per cent. The improved productivity of these benefits was valued at $215,378.
Other Forrester research shows 98 per cent of organisations report revenue impact from poor transaction management, and more than 80 per cent of interviewed decision makers noted a clear or pressing need for digital transaction management (DTM) solutions.
Scott Olrich says, agreements are at the core of all businesses – whether large or small, and whether the organisation has a formal process in place to manage agreements or not. No business operates without signing contracts and undertaking other formal processes with customers and suppliers, and for the channel this raises a significant opportunity to engage deeply in improving a customer’s productivity.
With the customisation and open platform capabilities of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, backed with the dedicated channel resources of the company, Australian partners have a significant chance to build a value-add solution that delivers deep productivity and efficiency gains.
For more information on the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, or the channel program in Australia, click here.
