A Large Diversified Manufacturing Group in India Digitises 60,000+ Documents Monthly with eMudhra emSigner

Client Overview

A Large Diversified Manufacturing Group in India is one of the country's largest industrial conglomerates, with significant operations in cement, chemicals, metals, financial services, and other sectors. The group operates a complex, supplier-intensive supply chain spanning hundreds of vendors, distributors, and retailers across the country. With procurement, vendor onboarding, and financial operations at this scale, the volume of documents requiring authorised digital signatures — including purchase orders, invoices, RFQ/RFP documents, tenders, and contracts — runs into the tens of thousands per month, making the efficiency and integrity of document signing a material operational and compliance concern.

The Challenge

Across the group's business units, document workflows involving procurement approvals, vendor onboarding, and vendor payments remained predominantly paper-based. Proposals were prepared in standard office applications, printed, manually signed, and couriered to vendors — a process that introduced significant delays in contract closure and vendor payment cycles. Inbound vendor documentation — income statements, information security compliance records, tax compliance certificates — was physically received at headquarters from multiple locations and manually verified, with the entire vendor onboarding process taking 20 to 25 days.

Vendor payment cycles were similarly impacted: manual receipt of invoices followed by physical approval from location managers added days to accounts payable turnaround times, affecting vendor relationships and supply chain efficiency. The group required an integrated digital signing solution that could handle bulk document signing, embed into existing ERP and inventory management systems, support both individual and class-based signing for different risk levels, and enable vendor-side digital document submission — all while retaining data on-premises for confidentiality.

“Our supply chain depends on fast, accurate document execution — vendor onboarding, purchase orders, invoices, contracts. When every one of those required a physical signature and courier delivery, we were losing weeks on every cycle. We needed digital signing that could work at our volume, integrate with our systems, and give us the audit trail we need for compliance. — Chief Procurement Officer”

The Solution

eMudhra implemented emSigner as the group's enterprise paperless office solution, deployed on-premises to provide full control, customisation, and on-premises data residency. The solution was integrated with the group's ERP application via web services APIs, enabling digital signing of documents directly within existing procurement and inventory management workflows.

For individual signing, individual digital signature certificates were issued to authorised signatories. For bulk signing — particularly for high-volume invoice processing — a Class 3 Document Signer Certificate was deployed, providing higher risk assurance for critical use cases. The signing infrastructure was backed by a Hardware Security Module (HSM) for cryptographic key protection. Additionally, eMudhra's SecurePass authentication server was deployed to automatically validate all incoming signed documents, enabling the group to verify the authenticity of vendor-submitted signed documentation in real time.

The solution covered external flows for vendor onboarding and vendor payments, internal flows between departments and finance, and bulk signing of proposals and contract documents. The phased integration approach enabled the group to progressively extend emSigner across all internal and external applications, targeting approximately 10,000 invoice signings, 500 proposals and contracts, and 50,000 other documents per month.

Results

The deployment of emSigner transformed the group's document workflows, reducing vendor onboarding from 20–25 days to hours, automating accounts payable, and enabling a fully paperless, audit-ready document operation across all major business functions.