EU Regulation Accelerates Europe's Digital Transformation
SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --With the EU set to introduce exciting new measures for ensuring that electronic signature regulations are enforced across all member states from July 1, the xDTM Standard Association today shared new endorsements from European industry leaders, demonstrating the continued validation and momentum of the global standard.
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The news comes on the back of the growing importance of digital transformation among organizations of all sizes and industries across the EU. And with the potential evolution of the member states comprising the EU itself, it underscores the importance of having a standard like xDTM that can operate effectively inside evolving legal frameworks.
"The xDTM Standard has enhanced the quality of digital transactions and digital signatures around the world," said Jim Hagemann Snabe, board member at the World Economic Forum, SAP, Allianz, Siemens, Maersk Group and Bang & Olufsen. "The payment card industry's data security standard (PCI DSS) did something similar - offering peace of mind for businesses and consumers; improving customer relationships with service providers that demonstrate this serious investment in security; and providing uniform standards that defined quality for financial transactions. The global xDTM Standard has added this value to digital transaction management industry."
More than 300 companies already endorse the xDTM Standard - with several prominent Board of Governors including SAP, BASF, Dow Jones, News Corp, Visa, Intel, Hewlett Packard, FedEx, NBC Universal, DocuSign, USPS, BuckleySandler, and Microsoft among others.
"The conducting of global business requires a strong infrastructure and the xDTM Standard provides that solid foundation for digital transactions and digital signatures. Organizations looking to capitalize on the efficiency of the digital realm should make sure that their transactions are managed with the utmost care, adhering to these best practices," said Rob Carter, chief information officer, FedEx Corporation and member of the xDTM Board of Governors.
"More than two years of intensive cross-industry work by prominent organizations and experts has resulted in the achievement of our key milestones, enabling the digital transaction management industry to continue its rapid growth with increased confidence," according to Heather Petersen, executive director of the xDTM Standard Association.
These milestones include:
- In March 2014, the initiative to develop a standard for DTM was launched in response to market requirements for more assurance that sensitive data be highly protected and consistently available.
- As a result of in-person board meetings, executive working group sessions, as well as discussion and deliberation, in early 2015 a comprehensive framework for the xDTM Standard was announced spanning eight key areas where trust and transparency are paramount.
- In March 2016, after review by an expanded global panel of experts, the complete xDTM Standard was ratified, yielding best practices for the industry in the first standard for digital transaction management.
The xDTM Standard provides in-depth guidelines and best practices that a DTM provider should address to create a trusted online environment for digital transactions - all based on the key requirements of security, privacy, compliance, enforceability, availability, openness, scalability, and universality.
According to the xDTM Standard, the eight areas that a DTM provider needs to address include:
- Security - features best-in-class technical protection, highly secure access, and proactive protection policies
- Assurance - provides assurance that xDTM transactions are compliant with applicable laws
- Privacy - allows a person or company to reveal information selectively, at their discretion
- Validity - has a reliable, transparent and verifiable chain of custody, and a digitally signed, tamper-evident audit trail
- Availability - ensures that transactions are always accessible and obtainable, high performing during periods of peak use, resilient across disaster scenarios, and free of scheduled offline maintenance
- Scalability - accepts increased volume without impacting performance due to ongoing capacity modeling and proactive lifecycle management
- Universality - functions across heterogeneous environments/devices and is accessible worldwide
- Interoperability - works across collaborative services environments and includes integration guidelines and APIs
"Global Standards like xDTM help drive consistent, predictable, and trustworthy interactions between parties, be it business-to-business, business-to-consumer, or consumer-to-consumer," said Arden Bement, former director of both the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation and xDTM board of governors. "The groundswell of support for the xDTM Standard by some of the most recognized brands and technology companies in the world shows the clear need and appetite for definition behind the methods, procedures, and requirements for safe and secure digital transactions and digital signatures. As more and more companies and individuals make the transition to digital, the xDTM Standard will serve as the guide post for what industry-leading digital transactions will look like."
The xDTM Standard has also kept pace with fast-changing market requirements and industry dynamics around key topics like security and privacy while also incorporating a "best of globe" approach where and when geographies establish their own regulations.
One example is the European Union's eIDAS regulation, which will have mandatory, direct effect across all EU member states, starting on July 1. The xDTM Standard Association has anticipated the coming regulation and has increased participation of several European organizations and global advisory firms.
"Digital transformation is key to making things easy to use and to implement - concepts that are at the heart of our 'run simple' philosophy," said Kai Jacob, head of global contract management services, Global Field Legal at SAP. "We're excited to be joining the advisory board and pleased to bring a European perspective to this effort. More trust and transparency in the digital realm is vital and we're looking forward to contributing to the effort to raise the quality bar for digital transaction management."
While that transformation is high on the agenda for European organizations of all sizes, companies had to focus on eSignature compliance in each EU member state instead of choosing the best solution for their customers. As of July 1, the new eIDAS EU-wide regulation will simplify and standardize eSignatures laws, promoting a single digital market in the EU. The result will accelerateEurope'sdigital transformation and facilitate electronic commerce with the rest of the world.
BASF is using digital transformation to drive its business forward. "With our global business we have a very diverse group of customers," said Wiebe van der Horst, senior vice-president, Global Process & Enterprise Architecture, BASF Group. "Digital transformation will be vital for us to become more efficient internally, but also to be faster and better in our interaction with customers. We are looking forward to driving this development forward together with xDTM."
"In the world of news, having secure information systems is mission-critical when delivering high-quality information as quickly as possible," said Jaswinder Hayre, chief information security officer at Dow Jones (News Corp). "Furthering the digital transaction management standard will be a vital component of our efforts, so we're looking forward to being part of the xDTM Standard Advisory Board in Europe."
An experienced board of advisors supports the xDTM Standard Association to ensure that digital transformation remains secure and reliable globally - including (but not limited to):
- Bruce Chizen, Former CEO of Adobe; Board Member at Oracle, Synopsys and Informatica
- Vicento Vento, CEO of Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners
- Robert Blackburn, President of BASF
- Rick Smith, Chairman & CEO of Equifax
- Ken Goldman, CFO of Yahoo!
- Andy Geisse, Former EVP of AT&T
- Chuck Watson, Former CEO of Dynergy
- Curtis Feeny, Board of Directors at CBRE Group
- Jeff Epstein, Former CFO of Oracle; Board Member at Kaiser Permanente and The Priceline Group
- Lew Coleman, Former Vice Chairman, President & CFO of Dreamworks Animation
- Maggie Wilderotter, Former Executive Chairman & CEO of Frontier Communications
- Rick Wagoner, Former Chairman & CEO of General Motors
- Tim Draper, Founder Draper Associates & DFJ
- Tom Dolan, Former President of Xerox Global Services
- Tom Friel, Former Chairman & CEO of Heidrick & Struggles
- Vicki Escarra, Global CEO of Opportunity International
The xDTM Standard Association board has also committed its support, with the full board of governors including:
- Rob B. Carter, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of FedEx Corporation
- Rick Echevarria, Vice President of Intel Security Group
- Eduardo Perez, Senior Vice President of Risk Strategy at Visa
- Bret Arsenault, Chief Information Security Officer of Microsoft
- Brett Wahlin, Chief Information Security Officer & Vice President of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise
- Darrell Keeling, Director, IT Security and Quality of Brown-Forman Corporation
- Dr. Arden Lee Bement, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Director of the Global Policy Research Institute
- Gerry McCartney, Chief Information Officer at Purdue University
- Jason Zann, Vice President and Head of Platform at RiskIQ
- Jonathan Palma, MD, MS Medical Director of Analytics at Stanford Children's Health
- Kevin Mahaffrey, Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer of LookOut
- Margo Tank, Partner at BuckleySandler LLP
- Michael R. Higgins, Chief Information Security Officer of NBCUniversal
- Natalie Pageler, MD CMIO and Clinical Assistant Professor, Pediatrics - Critical Care at Stanford Children's Health Stanford
- Randy Miskanic, CISO at US Postal Service (USPS)
- Reggie Davis, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer of DocuSign
- Rena Mears, Principal at DLA Piper LLP
- Robert D. Rodriguez, Chairman and Founder of Security Innovation Network (SINET)
- Scott Petry, Cofounder & CEO at Authentic8
- Tom Gonser, Founder of DocuSign
- Tom Pageler, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Security Officer of Neustar
Adding his weight to the process of digital transformation, Geoffrey Moore, the famed author of Crossing the Chasm, The Gorilla Game and Inside the Tornado, said: "The xDTM Standard provides the necessary assurance for the market, from early adopters to pragmatists and beyond, to embrace digital transaction management and realize significant efficiency and productivity gains."
"We are constantly innovating our processes, systems, and technology to make it easy to do business with HP," said Brett Wahlin, CISO, Hewlett-Packard. "The xDTM standard will make it even easier to buy and sell HP products by creating an open, trusted, and secure framework for digital transactions."
"Organizations around the world must maintain customer trust, especially in today's competitive business environment," said Rick Echevarria, VP of Software and Services Group, Intel. "The xDTM Standard provides a quality bar and guidance in terms of the best practices that organizations and customers alike can use to understand how digital transactions are protected. It provides assurance that they can safely conduct business transactions digitally, even in the face of constant change."
"Having a formal global standard in place makes it easier for organizations and consumers to conduct transactions digitally," said Eduardo Perez, SVP of Payment System Risk, Visa. "It benefits everyone: business gets done faster and transactions are more secure and accessible when needed. The xDTM Standard will help to drive more adoption and expand the market for digital transaction management."
For more information, visitwww.xDTM.org.
Media contact:
Judith Vanderkay
xDTM Standard Association
+1 781-876-6208
About the xDTM Standard Association
The xDTM Standard Association is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect and empower organizations to transact business online securely. Digital Transaction Management (DTM) is as a category of cloud services that enables companies to manage their document-based transactions digitally, allowing for faster, easier, more secure processes. DTM solutions help consumers and businesses complete transactions faster by automating manual, paper-based workflows for capturing information, payments, and signatures, thus eliminating the hassles, costs, and lack of security in printing, faxing, scanning, and overnighting documents. Organizations who have implemented DTM solutions report substantial ROI, improved security and compliance, and increased satisfaction and loyalty through better end user experiences.
