Fundación de Arbitraje saves 2 days in its workflow cycle with BlackBerry digital signature solutionFundación de Arbitraje Institucional provides arbitration services to clients all over Spain, mainly estate agents and estate managers. This independent foundation has approximately 15 internal and external staff members specialising in commercial relations, administrative duties and, of course, legal issues, including professional arbitration, providing solutions to legal disputes without having to undertake court proceedings.

Key Benefits

• Real time approval of essential documents from any location

• Legally valid digital signature

• Faster workflow for improved client service

• Improved time efficiency for mobile staff members

• Available for both BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook tablet

The ChallengeAs in any legal process, to make a claim for arbitration or to get property sales contracts legalised, the relevant documents must be submitted by clients to Fundación de Arbitraje. The acceptance of these documents must then be certified, in order to progress the case.

Fundación de Arbitraje’s commercial staff and arbitrators work away from the office regularly, dealing with other business, visiting clients and checking on cases. The combination of an essential document-approval process and a mobile staff means that, at times, documents received by email or via the web-based system are not accessed straight away as the recipient must return to his/her desktop PC to print out the document and sign, before workflow can progress.

Essential time was therefore being lost at Fundación de Arbitraje with the lag between receiving documents and their actual approval. Given that part of the argument for arbitration is that it is a swifter process than taking a dispute through the courts, the question of time is also a part of its service commitment to clients. Speeding up the approval process was therefore essential.

The SolutionIn its search for a solution, Fundación de Arbitraje discovered the BlackBerry® Digital Signature app available for BlackBerry® smartphones and BlackBerry® PlayBook tablets and developed by Internalia Group, a member of the BlackBerry® Alliance Program.

BlackBerry Customer Success Mobile digital signature app

With the application on an authorised user’s device, documents can be signed with a legally valid digital signature, which not only notes the signee’s actual signature, but also other essential information, such as date and time, GPS coordinates, an official reference number and BlackBerry® PIN. The solution also allows clients to sign documents on a BlackBerry® touch screen smartphone or tablet.

Fundación de Arbitraje installed the app onto its staff members’ BlackBerry smartphones. The app runs in the background and once a document is received via email and downloaded into Documents To Go®, the user can return to the app in order to apply their digital signature. The signed document can then be sent via email. With this process workflow continues, regardless of the user’s whereabouts.

The app’s users include the arbitrators themselves and the signature is personal and non-transferrable, thanks to password-protected access, which protects users from fraudulent use. Furthermore, the digital signature is compatible with many of the certified signatures issued by national authorities worldwide.

The BenefitsFor a growing company like Fundación de Arbitraje, the BlackBerry® solution has helped them deliver a service level akin to a much larger organisation. “By being able to approve documents in real time, the client’s experience is that they are receiving the service of a big company with lots of staff, but with the advantage that we don’t have to hire more people,” says Jesús Vara, head of Institutional Relations.

Immediately, the solution brought about exceptionally pleasing results for a company with staff members who are often out of the office. “One of our staff who had to authorise a document was not in the office, so he approved it on his BlackBerry smartphone and we avoided a delay in the process,” says Vara. While the company first employed the solution specifically for mobile staff and not all forms are signed via the app, “the solution is so good that staff members are using it increasingly frequently for real-time signing off of documents.”

“This app is very simple to use and very powerful,” says Francisco Orellana of Internalia Group. “As a result, it creates value for users very quickly.” In fact, Fundación de Arbitraje has found that use of the BlackBerry solution and the Digital Signature app has led to total time savings of approximately two days in the arbitration process. “Arbitration involves a range of phases, which is faster than going through the courts,” adds Vara. “But anything that contributes to further speeding up this process, like the digital signature on a BlackBerry smartphone, can be presented to our clients as a benefit in relation to any other kinds of proceedings.”

Given that Fundación de Arbitraje is one of the only Spanish arbitration organisations to use a digital signature solution and that arbitration is the swiftest conflict resolution method available, the BlackBerry solution and the Digital Signature app not only maintains and even helps increase the efficiency of arbitration, but also helps ensure all elements of the process are properly and legally approved.

Internalia Group

Internalia Group specialises in developing mobile apps that provide companies with major added value. Recognised for its innovation in the BlackBerry Innovation Awards, its customer portfolio is international. Its solutions are characterised by their ability to provide swift return on investment and process optimisation, increasing both productivity and effectiveness. The Group has been awarded ISO9001 and ISO14001 certificates.

Industry: Professional Services

Region: Spain

Company Size: Small

Solution: BlackBerry® smartphones BlackBerry® PlayBook™

BlackBerry® Digital Signature by Internalia Group

“The arbitration process is faster than going through the courts, but anything that contributes further to speeding up the process, like the digital signature on BlackBerry smartphone, can be presented to our clients as a further benefit.”Jesús Vara head of Institutional Relations Fundación de Arbitraje

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