Santander Bank and Cranfield university collaboration creates industry game changer - SignTech Forms

The difficulties and challenges faced by start-ups and innovative companies when it comes to breaking into the market and making themselves heard is a tall order to say the least.

SignTech Forms is a fascinating story. This is a growing venture spawned by a Cranfield University Business School graduate having experienced typical everyday frustrations associated with completing paper forms - something we can all relate to on a daily basis. It is a very good example of how universities and businesses can come together and collaborate to make a real, positive and practical impact on their communities.

SignTech Forms (formally known as SignTech Paperless Solutions Ltd) was founded in 2013 and showed immense potential starting with being selected as one of the Top 5 Big Ideas from the UK in a global competition by then Elance (now Upwork) and RackSpace. This saw SignTech Forms being showcased at the Google campus in London and receiving £16k of RackSpace services.

The story continues with SignTech Forms winning a top award for Best Innovative Use of Technology for Business from the UK BizTech BrightSpark award, however the turning point for the organisation was a chance presentation at Cranfield University - to the now Executive Chairman of Santander, Ana Botin. For SignTech Forms this was the key moment where the value of collaboration between organisations and education institutions is practically demonstrated as it resulted in direct contact from Ana Botin within 48 hours of the presentation, inviting SignTech Forms to engage with and help Santander explore how they can make use of SignTech Forms' proprietary technology to achieve their paperless aims.

Santander Universities runs a scheme for SMEs allowing them to hire students and graduates to take on specific projects and deliver value immediate value. Cranfield University Business Innovation Centre (CUBIC) has successfully provided that beneficial link to a pool of talented postgraduate students, which resulted in Dr. Jerome Dagonneau joining SignTech Forms and becoming a key member of team following the end of his period on the Santander Universities placement.

Recognising SignTech Forms' immense potential and scalability at an early stage, Cranfield University stepped in by providing office facilities at the Cranfield Technology Park, a great place to collaborate and work with like minded people and organisations.

Leke Babalola MBA explains, 'Following the presentation to Ana Botin, where she provided practical vital advice that helped the company a great deal, I was impressed that she kept to her word and got in contact the very same week to explore how SignTech Forms can work with Santander to help with the Paper-Free drive'. This was quite crucial and was a good start to a mutually beneficial long standing relationship between SignTech Forms and Santander.

SignTech Forms have since been in conversations with Santander Innoventures and have been asked by a number of areas within Santander to set up forms using SignTech's innovative Paper-Free platform.

SignTech Forms are extremely grateful to the late Emilio Botin for having created Santander Universities in the first place, which continues to make a significant difference to organisations as well as Students by providing practical opportunities to gain experience.

SignTech Forms have grown significantly to having over 30,000 users, it's paperless mobile apps (SignTech Forms and SignTech Pro - available on Android and iOS - with a Windows Phone version soon to be released) is widely used on a global scale - approaching 100,000 user/sessions and becoming the number 1 organic result for 'Paperless business forms' on Google U.K.

The company is poised to make a positive impact and is currently seeking further funding, strategic partnership and investment to scale and provide the service to more organisations on a global scale.

Whilst some may argue that SignTech Forms had a very good idea and were destined to reach great heights in any case, it is clear that the contributions from the collaboration between Santander Universities and Cranfield University have had a positive impact on the continued success of SignTech Forms.