Paperless Transformation of Automobile Company Using emSigner
eMudhra drives paperless transformation of a leading Automobile Company with utmost efficiency.
Overview
The automobile industry is filled with stacks of paper and there was a need to eliminate the load. The automobile industry is filled with stacks of paper and there was a need to cut out the paper. Typically a dealership would send multiple documents pertaining to invoices, warranty, services, etc., to the company as part of the dealer management workflow. While the data would get pushed through the dealer management system, the associated document flow was manual. This led to huge amount of paper which had to be printed, signed, and sent back and forth between the dealership and the automotive company. This was time-consuming and also error prone. Many a times, documents were routed back to a wrong dealership thus affecting productivity and reputation.
eMudhra outlined the following key areas where emSigner could significantly improve and streamline document workflows with respect to dealer management:
Business Matters
A South Korean Multinational company with over 500 dealers in India went paperless by signing invoices, proof of delivery, credit application, warranty, and service documents electronically using emSigner’s Digital Signature and Workflow Management capabilities.
Business Needs
The client wanted to remove operational inefficiencies caused due to huge stacks of paper stored at their facilities. Hence they were looking for a solution that would remove manual processing of key documents by integrating with their existing Dealer Management System.
Approach
Deploy an integrated solution to digitally sign and encrypt documents that are legally binding and guarantee authenticity, integrity and confidentiality of data.
The company should be able to use emSigner to facilitate multi-party and real time signing of documents related to invoice processing, regulatory compliance, audit sign off, expense reporting and inventory sign off. In a phased manner the organisation would integrate all of their internal as well as external applications with emSigner to expedite signing of proof of delivery, credit application, warranty, service documents, etc
Digital Signature Technology
The Digital Signature technology works on the Public Key Infrastructure framework which uses a Cryptographic Key Pair — Private and Public Key — for secure access and transmission of Information.
Digital Signatures are generated by the issuer for the client in a secure device.
- Multiple proposals were signed at once using bulk signing feature and were mailed digitally
- Dealers would be able to send digitally signed documents, which would be automatically checked for legal validity and correctness directly by the Corporate Office
- Departments/Location Managers would be able to approve requests digitally and track real time status of signature progress using Signed/Pending/Completed/Declined classification. This led to accurate compliance reporting
- emSigner was integrated with company existing systems such as ERP, CRM, SCM, and so on using web services APIs
Benefits
The Automobile Company reaped in significant benefits by implementing digital signature based workflow signing. This includes:
- Legal non-repudiation thereby reducing frauds
- Signing and approving documents anywhere, anytime
- Tracking real-time status of signature progress happening on documents initiated for signing
- Faster turnaround time, increased employee efficiency, productivity and transparency
- Meeting compliance & regulatory requirements
- Completely paperless workflow resulting in huge savings
Traditional DMS
Dealer → Centralized Dealer Management System → Print → Physical Sign → Scan → Upload → Track Physical Signature
Dealer Management System coupled with emSigner capabilities
Dealer → Centralized Dealer Management System → Electronic Signature
Solution
eMudhra implemented emSigner — Secure Paperless Office solution — to enable Digital Signature based approvals for the following workflows:
- External flows between dealers and company
- Internal flows between Departments and Finance
- Bulk signing of documents for sending proposals to dealers
emSigner was integrated with the ERP application over Web Services API for digital signing of documents.
Deployment was done on-premise which allowed company greater degree of control and customization and allowed the company to retain data on-premise for confidentiality purposes.
- For individual signing, individual digital signature certificates Authorized Signatories
- For Bulk Signing, Class 3 Document Signer Certificate was used, which gives a higher risk assurance to relying parties for critical use cases such as Invoice Signing
- From a security and risk standpoint, a Hardware Security Module was used to store the Class 3 Document Signer certificate
The paperless office solution uses following broad modules:
emSigner:
- On-premise Digital Signature enabled workflow management solution used for defining paperless workflows
Hardware Security Module:
- Protect the cryptographic infrastructure of some of the most security-conscious organizations in the world by securely managing, processing, and storing cryptographic keys inside a hardened, tamper-resistant device
Class 3 Document Signer Certificate:
- To sign critical documents such as invoices
SecurePass:
- eMudhra authentication server which was used to automatically validate the signed documents that was received by the organization