DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR SELF EMPLOYED PROFESSIONALS
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR SELF EMPLOYED PROFESSIONALS
Who are Self Employed Professionals?
Self-employed professionals may be involved in different occupations but generally are highly skilled and mastered a particular kind of work. They go through dedicated study and certification to gain expertise in their subject matter in order to be able to cater to society. The examples of self-employed professionals may include Doctor, CA, CS, insurance advisors, lawyers, architect and so on.
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https://tinyurl.com/296w6e7tThey undergo rigorous training to become what they are. They also get themselves registered with a specific organization or higher body of that profession. For example, doctors get registered themselves at IMA – Indian Medical Association. Doctors who are registered at any one state medical council will directly be included in the Indian Medical Register. Likewise, there are other bodies like IRDA – Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority for insurance advisors, among others.
Any person who has attained law school and LLB degree has to acquire a law license in order to practice law. A Chartered Accountant has to do articleship, meet other requirements and be a member of ICAI – Institute of Chartered Accountants of India before they can put CA title to their name.
Code of Conduct for Self Employed Professionals
These are some of the very powerful professions, with more power comes more responsibilities. They have to follow the code of conduct and disciplines that come with their profession. They have to be legitimate and dignified both as they carry out their day to day tasks because customers are at stake.
Self-employed professionals like doctors, lawyers, CA etc. have to abide by the rules wherein they cannot advertise falsely about their profession. Many have taken this as a wrong signal and now don’t inherit digital because they think they have restrictions. Nothing is wrong with going digital, but it is the overstated claims that can land them in trouble.
“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”– George Bernard Shaw
The government is keen on citizen’s interests. Hence, no claims or advertisements that are hypothetical are allowed. For instance, say, a doctor advertises if you visit my hospital you will survive guaranteed or a lawyer says connect with me and you will never lose your trial or CA who says if you accept my services, you will be shown as clean and plain as a white paper. These are false promises and if not all, many would have gone this way had the government not barred false advertising of services.
The competition is quite neck to neck in such professions because more and more people need these services on a day to day basis. A common man would need to go to the hospital, need to work with a CA, take care of insurance, need legal protection and what not. Hence, their hopes are clinged to these services and people who provide it to them. Sometimes matters can be critical, sometimes sensitive hence such regulations are imposed.
Why is Digital Required for Self Employed Professionals?
Deciding which upcoming technologies are worth investing in and getting your team, workers on board with change is not always the easiest task to pull off. If you want to adapt to the digital, a shift towards an open mind and risk taking ability is required. It would mean leaving old business processes behind and taking a leap of faith that disruption will yield positive and big results.
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
One aspect is to push yourself toward digital and other is to make your business processes familiar with digital by incorporating the same into it. The self-employed professionals are often too busy to realize the need for this shift. A proper website can fetch them new customers and increase their reach, an online app can help them consult and give better services (in preliminary cases), a digital CRM can help maintain their customer data in an organized way, block chain electronic records would help maintain concrete client data etc.
Examples of Digital revolution in Self Employed professions
Digital revolution has taken some of these professions by storm and is continuing to disrupt more and more fields. For instance, in the healthcare industry it is now possible to book your slot with a doctor online. You don’t need to go, wait in the lobby for hours until it is your turn. If the problem is not that serious, then doctors are even prescribing the medicines online and charging for the online consultation fee which can be paid via e-money. This is fostering doctor patient communication and relationships.
Sometimes, the doctors are busy, sometimes they encounter a challenging case or a rare unforeseen disease. In these cases, digital doctor online platforms can help the doctors connect to domain expertise and other peers who can discuss and guide among themselves in case of conundrum and seek their guidance for the same.
In the case of insurance as well, the digital transformation has altered the space. The insurers are understanding the importance of new possibilities and undergoing value driven digital operating models to ignite long term success. The technology has altered the way customers are communicating with the insurance advisors. This helps the common man to buy insurance products without middlemen. This also gives them the liberty to compare and search the insurance products on their own over dedicated websites. Acko General Insurance Company is India’s first fully digital insurance company.
The insurers vision to eliminate the middlemen, provide the insurance hassle free and also take feedback from their customers via email or SMS. Here, the role of digital CRM is most vital.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
The digital CRM – Customer Relationship Management lets them maintain their customer details and preferences in a precise way. It helps them to reach customers to send personalized messages and ask for feedback. There are other digital tools that help insurers predict what kind of product a customer would like to have with the help of customer history.
Also Digital MARCOM can be used by them to do targeted marketing. They can customize their websites with the help of such tools and increase customer reach. With more and more people who encounter the product, more is the chance of them buying.
Because of these technologies that put the stakeholders at ease and free the process from unwanted complexity it makes more sense than ever to invest in digital. Even if you are not a big company, but a self-employed professional who is catering to society and the masses it is equally important for them to take a moment and think about reinventing the way they do business.
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| MR. PRAKASH ARYA |
Enthusiast, Strategist, Keen Planner and Strong Charisma, these are some of the motivations with which I associate myself. I describe my self as an eProfessional, who evangelizes digital media as Entrepreneur, Mentor, Management Consultant, Speaker and Writer and Domain Knowledge Expert. In my phenomenal more than two decades of long career, I have played varied roles and been an eSpecialist in the sphere of Digital and Online Communication as well as in eBusinesses in different organizations in India and abroad.
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