Founder of impression™, Andy Papastefanou: "I'm really excited to be going on this journey with the team at EOH and the opportunity that it brings. The impression team (Magda, Luben and Jan) have worked tirelessly to get us to this point and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning."
EOH has a deep, practical understanding of financial services in Africa and is serious about transformation, having achieved a level 1 B-BBEE rating - striving to be a force for good in South Africa.
EOH CEO for ICT, Rob Godlonton: "We are excited about impression joining EOH as this further enhances our capabilities in the digital world with our customers who are transforming at a rapid pace. impression and EOH have an established partnership of delivering digital solutions and having the team join EOH made sense for our customers, the impression team and EOH. We look forward to many successful years together."
]]>Impression™ Signatures founder, Andrew Papastefanou was named one of Africa’s Aspiring Innovators 2016 at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in September at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The event is described as “the World's Most Important Gathering of CIOs and Senior IT Executives” as it allows the executives to identify and explore technology and service providers that address their specific business needs and gain the insights into the next generation of IT.
For the second year running, select aspiring innovators were chosen to exhibit their start-ups at the symposium by Research VP at Gartner, Jeffrey Mann.
“We asked on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for companies doing interesting things, and selected six out of the 35 proposals from five countries to highlight at the event,” Mann says in his blog.
As one of the innovators chosen, Papastefanou presented the Impression™ video which demonstrates the benefits of digital signature solutions through an animated storyline.
“It was fantastic to be named as one of the start-ups to keep an eye on in Africa,” says Papastefanou, “and the reaction we received for Impression™ was overwhelming.”
Symposium attendees were able to see first-hand how the technology behind Impression™ provides mobile, secure and legally recognised digital signatures that can be made on any smart device.
“Businesses urgently need to focus on their customer journeys,” says Papastefanou, “when the customer feels like a process is made simpler and more effective for them, you automatically build trust and brand loyalty.”
Impression™ allows companies to push documents directly to your customers’ devices, making them immediately available for review.
“With a few swipes of a smart device the document is signed and sent back without any hassle, helping close deals faster, improve service levels and enhance the customer journey,” Papastefanou says.
Impression can be seamlessly incorporated into an enterprise’s operations. It can be used as a standalone app process, an enterprise-branded version of the app or incorporated into existing customer channel ecosystems and processes.
Papastefanou concludes, “Digital signature technology looks set to revolutionise the way businesses operate, moving away from outdated physical signature processes that are time-consuming and impractical in the digital era.”
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Impression™ provided the following benefits to Absa and its service providers:
• Savings to cost and efficiency – digital documents are ‘sealed’, reducing the need for multiple signatures to just one.
• Improving the customer journey – because fewer signatures are required, the customer experience is improved and they have more time to explore other products.
• Security and compliance – digital signatures are embedded into the document with advanced security features to prevent fraud and tampering. The process is fully compliant with all relevant legislation and are legally recognised.
• Printing and storage – all documents signed with Impression™ can be stored in Absa’s digital, global customer database, reducing printing and storage costs.
• Support - Impression™ works with its partners to ensure optimal uptime.
“After our launch in 2015, we’ve seen massive growth on our mobile platform, especially in Africa,” says Papastefanou, “In fact, we’re ranked by the Google Play Store as one the top business apps downloaded in various African countries, coming second in Tanzania and sixth in Kenya for example,” says Papastefanou.
The ranking is derived from multiple factors such as number of times the app has been downloaded, its ratings on the store and how long the app is retained for on the device.
Impression™ is available as a free download on Apple iTunes, Google Play and Microsoft Store and allows users to open and share documents with popular apps such as Whatsapp, DropBox, Google Drive and email.
“People are looking for convenience and with the prevalence of smartphones, Impression is an obvious choice for consumers. It no longer matters if you’re in the office or at the beach, you can now sign and send those important documents with a few swipes of your finger or stylus,” Papastefanou says.
Viewing documents signed with Impression™ only requires a free PDF reader, which provides users with a green tick to indicate the document hasn’t been tampered with since it was safely signed.Being fully compliant with relevant security and data regulations, including the South African Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002, is another key benefit of Impression™. “South Africa’s signature laws are the most stringent and comprehensive of their kind on the continent. This has benefitted us when taking the app to other African countries who are looking to South Africa as an example of how signature laws should be written,” says Papastefanou.
He concludes, “Impression maintains high standards of security with strong anti-forgery and encryption features to ensure protection for both the signee and the organisation requiring the signature. These digital signatures are enhanced with GPS locations, device and network identifiers, making it easy to track a full audit trail.”
]]>Snapcart allows users to place a request online or via their app for the delivery of almost any product, from an envelope to furniture and rubble, and service providers can then place bids for the transport of those goods.
In the next phase of its development, Snapcart expanded its cloud services to its service providers – the transport and courier companies – including the ability for customers to sign proof of delivery documents on smart devices through the Impression™ platform.
This made Snapcart the first company in South Africa to offer digital signature solutions on smart devices to the transport and delivery market, removing the need for unnecessary paperwork for both customers and service providers. Impression™ was seamlessly embedded into the existing Snapcart app, eliminating the need for Snapcart to spend time and money on developing their own digital signature solution.
Andrew Papastefanou, Founder of Impression Signatures, says the collaboration between Snapcart and Impression has been an inspirational journey to be a part of.
“It is fantastic to see two South African digital companies working together to develop new solutions to offer the market and we look forward to nurturing this innovative partnership,” he says.
Andre Trollip, Director of Snapcart says, “When we first heard of Impression™, we knew it was going to revolutionise the transport industry. This platform was critical in being able to offer more cloud solutions to our service providers, which has made a significant improvement to our internal processes and has delivered several benefits our customers and our service providers.”
Impression™ provided the following benefits to Snapcart and its service providers: