Introduction
DocuSign is a technology company that facilitates digital signature of contracts in a secured way and provides digital transaction management services. A DocuSign user can create a contract and send it through an email to the intended person for signature.
DocuSign authenticates the person who will be signing the document and after getting the e-signature of the person, securely transfers the signed copy of the document back to the user. The signed digital contract is securely stored in the cloud from where the user can easily access it at any time and from anywhere.
For the year ended January 31st, 2021, DocuSign generated over $1.3bn in subscription revenues, an increase of over 50% from the previous year.
DocuSign Agreement Cloud Software
The Company’s software suite is designed for automating the entire agreement process. This solution includes DocuSign eSignature, the world’s #1 electronic signature solution. DocuSign eSignature allows an agreement to be signed electronically on a wide variety of devices, from virtually anywhere in the world, securely.
The Agreement Cloud also includes several other applications for automating pre- and post-signature processes—for example, automatically generating an agreement from data in other systems, supporting negotiation workflow, collecting payment after signatures, and using artificial intelligence to analyse a collection of agreements for risks and opportunities.
Furthermore, the Agreement Cloud includes hundreds of integrations to other systems, so agreement processes can integrate with larger business processes and data.
Business Model
The user of DocuSign service who creates and sends the contract has to pay a fixed monthly or annual fee to the Company while the person signing the document does not pay anything.
The pricing is based on the number of users who can create and send contracts and also on the number of documents those users can send. There are three different plans offered by the Company which are summarize below.
Let us focus on the business pro plan that has three additional services which greatly enhance the value of digital signature as a service.
The first feature is “collect payments” where user can collect payments along with the digital signature from the person.
The second unique feature is in-person signature where the salesperson can present a contract to the customer when meeting the customer in person and get an e-signature.
The third feature is where the user can send contracts in bulk to a group of recipients.
DocuSign provides customized services to their clients. The digital contract management service is one such service which allows the clients to easily manage all their contracts from a single portal. DocuSign generates revenue from the customers based on their usage and level of services provided.
Another source of revenue for DocuSign is providing the API to developers. An API is a short piece of code which can be embedded in a website or an app, in order to create a contract to get digital signatures from the customers. DocuSign charges the developer based on the usage and level of services the developer chooses.
Summary
DocuSign isn’t just a company that lets you sign documents online. It’s a next generation internet play and it’s really a play on the further digitisation of our economy and our lives as a whole. The Company is essentially redefining single-handedly how we enter into contractual agreements.
The Company boasts of having 90 of fortune 500 companies as clients and they also have a number of patents on digital signature technology as well as on handwriting recognition technology.
DocuSign’s revenue and earnings are relatively predictable because of its subscription-based business model. As of January 31st, 2021, the software had over 890,000 subscription customers, including over 120,000 enterprise and commercial customers across sectors such as real estate, financial services, insurance, health care, life sciences, government, higher education, communications, retail & manufacturing.
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