DTM at Westgate Resorts Westgate Resorts, one of the nation’s top vacation resort companies, has always focused on a smooth and pleasant experience for its members and sales team. It is also an industry leader in digital transformation. Early last year, eOriginal, Inc., DocuSign, Inc. and Informa Software joined forces to deliver a seamless end-to-end DTM solution for Westgate Resorts. The all-digital Westgate Resorts Timeshare System allows Westgate Resorts to become 100 percent digitally integrated throughout their entire business processes—from sales presentations to customer contract execution while providing secure vaulted management of all documentation and signed contracts and loans. The First Step: eSignature When it comes to closing a deal on vacation property, basic contract digitization is a powerful opportunity to increase customer satisfaction, decrease sales costs, reduce contract errors, increase speed to funding and enable customers to sign in real-time. With eSignature technology, contract signing is reduced from hours to minutes by eliminating the lag of snail mail and hard-copy document management. Customer service and efficiency is improved by having a signing experience that is optimized for mobile and tablet devices for both the buyer and seller. process, is an essential benefit to a robust DTM system. Most within the vacation ownership industry require certainty in the control and protection of the authoritative copy, the only original contract copy, of high- value contracts to ensure that their security interests in such contracts are perfected and maintained. Mitigating Risk It is essential to find a DTM solution that ensures that your contracts are legally- binding. Risks occur when funders or buyers won’t accept a digital transaction Vacation ownership businesses are increasingly adopting Digital Transaction Management practices to seamlessly combine the white glove treatment with state-of-the art technology. Moreover, an electronic signature process eliminates errors and omissions commonly made on paper contracts that may cause needless delays and an endless back and forth. As a component of DTM though, eSignature technology is really just the tip of the iceberg. The discipline of asset management within a DTM solution provides control to end users, while securely providing access to additional third-party participants, such as lenders, document custodians, investors, auditors and legal counsel. Securing Your Assets Creating legally verifiable authentic copies is the surest way to give banks and funders peace of mind that their digital assets are rigorously protected and legally binding. To maintain uniqueness of the Timeshare contracts are the financial assets for vacation ownership companies. Therefore, securing ownership of contracts, and having certainty in the authoritative copy, every reproduction of the contract necessary for working copies should be watermarked to indicate that it is indeed a copy of the original. because they lack confidence in the process used to manage that asset. In the paper world, ownership is secured with physical possession, but in the digital world, ownership is tracked through control. The best solutions provide a complete electronic audit trail of all interactions with the document throughout the life of the contract. For post-signature functions, such as sale, securitization, or collateralization, vital features include encryption, tamper seal Perspective Magazine January-March 2016 33