A few months back, it seemed impossible to work from home but all of you have made peace with the unprecedented situation in your own way. In fact, many of you may have made plans to continue with work from home to save time, money and energy.
Let’s look at the transition of your journey to an entire digital world.
Client interaction
Even as most of you feel that physical meetings are more impactful, the MFD fraternity's transition to virtual meetings has been unexpectedly quick.
Now your client meetings have moved to online platforms like Zoom, WhatsApp, Skype and Google Duo.
Agra MFD Shifali Satsangee of Funds Vedaa said the social distancing situation has prompted most businesses to adopt the work from home model. As a result, communication has become a hurdle. "But for the moment we can take solace in technology. Virtual meeting apps have helped me interact with clients any time of the day during lockdown. Virtual review meetings also save plenty of time and resources,” she added.
Productivity
By now, work from home has become a new normal for most of you. And probably it will continue for some more time.
Nevertheless, working from your comfort zone (home) can be distracting and can affect productivity. But Vishal Dhawan, Founder, Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors has found a way to handle the change. He wakes up early in the morning and gets ready as if he was going to the office. “I wear office clothes to get an office like vibe at home. I then do a couple of video-conferencing calls with my colleagues to discuss the day followed by client calls. In addition, I have enrolled for training programs on practice management,” said Vishal.
Shift from physical to online transactions
Executing digital transactions was like a ghost to many of you until lockdown. In this regard, the one good thing that this lockdown did to the industry is accelerate the pace of shifting to online transactions.
Yes, there is a major challenge to deal with clients who only understand physical transactions. But this gradual shift is worth all the pain in the long term. Shifali says that although there is a major challenge to deal with clients who prefer physical transactions, her team is helping every investor personally to conduct digital transactions. “Moreover, from now on, we are using digital KYC and transaction platforms to onboard new clients and execute transactions across fund houses,” she added.
Catalyse the adoption of digital technology
Many distributors have started using digital technology to offer a host of services like doing video KYC, risk profiling, video conferencing and so on.
Pallav Bagaria, director at Sapient Wealth Advisors and Brokers shares that they conducted 5-6 webinars with clients post the lockdown to respond to client queries on digital transactions, privacy, markets, economy and sector outlook. “We have had up to 3,000 participants on the webinars from different parts of the country as well as the world,” he said.
