Stadgenoot is a housing corporation in Amsterdam that rents out thirty thousand social rental homes with an average rent of 500 euros per month. The housing corporation was created in July 2008 from a merger of two Amsterdam housing corporations, the Algemene Woningbouw Vereniging (AWV, founded in 1910) and Het Oosten (from 1911).
With over 300 employees spread across four business units, we can say that Stadgenoot is a sizeable organisation. Two business units are responsible for financial and housing management: Finance & Business Operations and Strategy & Portfolio. The client-oriented work is housed in the Client & Housing business unit. Property-related projects are at Property & Development.
Security
Since early 2020, a large part of the organisation has been signing digitally with the ValidSign solution. The reason for implementing the digital signature was the desire to perfectly safeguard the security surrounding the signing process and personal data. The wet variant had not been able to offer the organisation that guarantee at all times. Stadgenoot came into contact with ValidSign through their ERP system supplier Aareon. Shortly after the recommendation, a meeting was scheduled with ValidSign for a demonstration of the signing platform and to discuss the possibilities for Stadgenoot. Ibrahim Hassan, functional administrator at Stadgenoot: "Finding a digital signature supplier is fairly simple, but a supplier that also acts as a partner and always thinks along with the client is rare. We found this in ValidSign."
With the exception of two departments, ValidSign’s digital signature has now been rolled out across the entire organisation. These two departments currently use the digital signature service from another supplier. These departments have therefore been using this functionality for somewhat longer. This way, every department maintains watertight security for signed documents and has the signing process visible from A to Z. The organisation has chosen to identify signatories through two-factor authentication. This SMS authentication ensures that in addition to email verification, the signer’s phone number is also verified to make sure it is the right person.
Additionally, they will use IDIN authentication. This method of identification will mainly be used by their tenants, for example when signing rental contracts.
A number of departments primarily use ValidSign for having forms, orders, and/or contracts signed by external parties, while the finance department signs internal (dis)bursement orders.
Location and time independent
The current way of working due to the corona crisis has led to an increasing need for the digital way of signing. Ibrahim says: "Like the rest of the Netherlands in early 2020, we were abruptly only allowed to work from home. Just getting a signature from your manager or director was quite a challenge. We were forced to organise processes differently. Signatories were, for example, not present on location or did not have their own printer. With ValidSign, we can sign independently of location, time, and device."
Process acceleration
In addition to the fact that the solution safeguards the security of documents, it also accelerates processes. "The turnaround time of a signing in general has been significantly shortened because a number of steps no longer need to be performed. The paper hassle is less and employees have more time for other matters. The ValidSign users within Stadgenoot are satisfied with the solution and were able to get started immediately after the initial guidance, which was also co-organised by ValidSign."
Future
Within the next few weeks, we expect the two departments that do not yet use the ValidSign functionality to start using the solution, and many more documents per month will be digitally signed with ValidSign. Additionally, ValidSign and Aareon are working on developing the integration between the ERP system Tobias AX and ValidSign so that Stadgenoot and other companies can sign from within their familiar ERP system. Once the integration is realised, multiple departments will make use of it. Ibrahim says: "The digital signature is now indispensable in our processes and its use will only increase in the coming years. That is also the reason why we are happy to partner with ValidSign and Aareon to make the integration even more future-proof. We are happy to invest time and effort in this, because we believe we will get a lot in return."
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