Remote working has quickly become the new normal. Many businesses that were initially sceptical have experienced the benefits and many will likely continue with remote working long after it’s necessary.

This is the first time that many organisations have rolled out remote working on such a scale and as a result it can take some adjusting to. As a global team with partners in multiple countries and time zones, we’ve learned a few things along the way.

Many companies have told staff to work from home and this has presented a challenge for some employees who are missing the means to operate remotely.

In this day and age there is genuinely no reason to use paper for contracts, agreements, HR and other business documents. What is important is to ensure authenticity, trust and integrity of signed business documents.

Like many others, we have been affected financially by COVID-19, cancelling a major event at short notice. Thankfully our suppliers have been very helpful in rescheduling.

As a UK business that has been affected and in the spirit of helpfulness, we are offering any affected organisation a free 2500 e-signature pack to be used by all employees on our SigningHub cloud service.

One of the key concerns people have when switching to e-signatures is whether they have the same legal certainty as a paper and ink signature. Ensuring e-signed documents are legally enforceable in a court of law is critical, as no company wants to see its documents disputed.

Fertility clinics work within a highly sensitive sector where patient consent and comprehension must be irrefutable. MD Consents is acutely familiar with these requirements, particularly when the company launched its fertilityconsent.com service.

This is one of the most common questions we are asked. There is a clear difference between electronic signatures and digital signatures though, and confusingly digital signatures can be referred to as electronic signatures which does not help matters.

So what is the difference?

Digital signatures must provide a way to authenticate the signer’s identity.

This is done through the use of a unique PKI signing key for each user (PKI stands for Public Key Infrastructure, a technical framework of encryption and cybersecurity) and an associated digital certificate which acts as a digital identity embedded into every signature.

Because of their organisational structure charities, community groups and social enterprises are usually highly collaborative with members, volunteers, group leaders, investors and trustees all having an influence on decision making.

In our latest industries blog we are focusing on natural resources.

Producers of major commodities (coal, iron ore, oil, natural gas) are realising great efficiencies through technology but in a low-growth environment there are opportunities to extend these benefits into broader operational areas.