by Jim Lundy

Last week Dropbox took the next step in making its platform more of a work hub. It announced that the HelloSign digital transaction management (DTM) solution will soon be available as a free (and paid) option to integrate directly with existing Dropbox user accounts. This blog talks about the shifts in the market, the growth of DTM, and why cloud content management has become a commodity.

Dropbox Puts Box, Google, Microsoft, and Others on Notice

Dropbox just changed the cloud content management market and put Box, Microsoft, and Google on notice. Why? Well, each of them offers very robust cloud content management options that are similar to Dropbox. However, they don't offer embedded e-signature and transaction management.

The cloud content management market is shifting too. People want more than just storage. Dropbox realized this last year when 1) it acquired HelloSign, and 2) it shifted to focus on spaces, which Aragon calls digital work hubs.

Dropbox's integration with HelloSign positions it well for the digital transaction management market.

Dropbox Shifts From Cloud Content Management to Work Hubs

Aragon published its first Digital Work Hub Globe report last year, which discussed the shift away from standalone apps to a more integrated approach. With the move by Dropbox, the work hub market is evolving.

One of the powerful features that is part of the new Dropbox is the ability to store finished documents in a Dropbox folder of your choice. This eliminates a huge bottleneck that many users of DTM face today—the problem of where signed documents are stored and how much work is it to move them there. Dropbox now manages this automatically.

The Growth of the Digital Transaction Management Market—No one Saw it Coming

Aragon forecasted the market for digital transaction management in 2014 at a time when no one was looking at or paying attention to it. Jump ahead to 2020 and our forecast holds fast. In fact, DocuSign now has revenues approaching US $1 billion. This growth has not gone unnoticed in the rest of the market, and now you see providers like Dropbox making DTM features standard capabilities in its Spaces platform.

Bottom Line

The DTM market continues to grow and, due to its growth, more related markets like cloud content management are being impacted. Enterprises need to step back and look at whether they need to continue to buy two products (DTM and cloud content) or if they can get it all from one provider. Enterprises also need to review their relationships with current DTM providers to make sure that they have access to all legacy signed documents.