Stadgenoot, one of the largest housing corporations in the Netherlands, has implemented the e-signature from ValidSign to streamline the signing process within its organization. This is a major step forward for Stadgenoot in terms of digital transformation and promises to deliver substantial improvements in efficiency and customer experience. In this article, we take a look at the benefits of this new technology and how it is being implemented across the organization.
Stadgenoot is a housing corporation in Amsterdam and rents out more than thirty thousand social rental properties, that has an average rent of 500 euros per month. The housing corporation was formed in July 2008 through a merger between two Amsterdam housing corporations, the General Housing Association (AWV, founded in 1910) and Het Oosten (from 1911).
With more than 300 employees, spread over the four business units, Stadgenoot is an organization of size. Two business units provide financial and public housing management: Finance & Operations and Strategy & Portfolio. The customer-oriented work is housed in the Customer & Home business unit. The real estate-oriented projects are at Real Estate & Development.
Safe signing
Since the beginning of 2020, a large part of the organization has been digitally signing with ValidSign’s cloud based platform. The desire to make the switch over to an e-signature was fueled by the possibility to guarantee the security around the signing process and personal data seamlessly, as the manual signature wasn’t able to offer this guarantee at all times.
After Stadgenoot had made the decision to implement the e-signature, they were referred to ValidSign through their ERP system supplier Aareon. They scheduled a demo with ValidSign to have a tour of the signing platform and to discuss the possibilities for implementing it in their workflow. Ibrahim Hassan, functional administrator at Stadgenoot mentions, “Finding a digital signature supplier is quite easy, but you rarely find a supplier who also identifies as a partner and always thinks along with the customer. We found this in ValidSign.”
Except from two departments, ValidSign’s e-signature has now been rolled out across the organization. These two departments are currently using an e-signature platform from another supplier, but will soon make the transition over to ValidSign.
By using an e-signature, each department provides the highest level of security for the signing of their documents, and at the same time they have full insight into the signing process through the platform’s dashboard. The organization has chosen to identify signers through a second-factor authentication, this SMS authentication feature ensures that in addition to the regular email verification, the signer’s phone number is also verified to make sure it’s the correct person signing.
Then the iDIN authentication is being used by tenants for when signing the leases etc.
Most of the departments uses the platform for signing forms, assignments and/or contracts by external parties, while the finance department signs internal payment orders.
Sign anywhere and at any time
Because of the COVID pandemic, and the new way of working, there is an increased need for the digital way of signing. Ibrahim says: “Like the rest of the Netherlands, in the beginning of 2020 everything changed abruptly when we were only allowed to work from home. Getting an a signature from your manager or director was then a tricky task, and we were forced to rethink the processes. For example, the signatories were not present on location or did not have their own printer at home. ValidSign now allows us to sign, whenever, wherever!”.
Increased efficiency
In addition to the fact that the e-signing solution guarantees a high level of document security, the process has also become more efficient. “The time it takes to receive a signed document has been significantly reduced because a number of actions no longer need to be carried out. The volume of paperwork has also been drastically and employees have more time to spend on other important tasks. The users within Stadgenoot are satisfied with the new way of signing, and they were able to get started working with the platform after an initial introduction, which was nicely organized by ValidSign.
About the future
Within now and a few weeks, we expect the two departments that aren’t currently using the ValidSign platform to make the transition and then even more documents will be digitally signed. In addition, ValidSign and Aereon are developing the integration between the ERP system Tobias AX and ValidSign so that Stadgenoot and other companies can start signing from the trusted ERP system.
Once the integration has been implemented, several departments will be using it. Ibrahim says: “The e-signature is an indispensable part in our processes, and the use of it will only increase in the coming years. That is also why we like to work with ValidSign and Aareon to make the integration even more future-proof. We like to invest time and effort in this, because we believe that we will get a lot in return”.
Want to know more about how ValidSign’s e-signing solution can be implemented in your organization’s workflow?
Contact our sales department on: sales@validsign.eu/ +31(0)85303 3676 or request a free demo HERE!
