Business

The Covid-19 pandemic affected individuals and businesses alike. People likely had their income reduced, in one way or another, whilst government subsidies and economic bailouts did little to help ameliorate their financial struggles. Businesses faced closures and losses in sales due to lockdowns and/or disrupted supply chains. Many people have suffered from pandemic-related stress, and this reflected on the insurance industry as a whole. In the text below, we have listed some of the ways in which this global crisis has impacted the insurance market, and the changes we are likely to see in the future as a result of these unprecedented times.

Digitalization and Automation of Insurance

Being that many people have been unable to go to work or send their kids to school due to restrictive safety measures, businesses had to get creative with their work-from-home policies. The insurance agencies which did not have a digitalization plan in place suffered higher losses in sales and were forced to find a way to effectively conduct their business online. Many industries have been forced to undergo a digitization process due to the pandemic, and insurance is no exception.

Insurance agents all over the world have been utilizing communication and marketing automation software to facilitate quick, clear and hands-free online communication with policyholders. Delivering policy documents, issuing billing reminders, and sending renewal letters are just some of the many daily tasks which insurance agencies had to quickly move online. And, with the uptick in the amount of digital communication that insurance brokers are now doing on a daily basis with their policyholders, these manual workflows are now automated and require little to no-input from the insurance agents themselves. Automated emails tailored to the specific needs of each policyholder are triggered by data from within each broker’s management system.

To further reduce the workload that insurance agents are now having to cope with, they have given policyholders access to their documents online via an insurance app and web-based self service kiosk. This reduced the insurance agencies’ call volumes, and the costs of hiring more people to perform humdrum, day-to-day administrative tasks.

These automated communication platforms don’t only help insurance professionals save time by streamlining manual tasks, they also help with increasing sales. Relevant, and more importantly highly personalized, upsell and cross-sell emails are automatically sent out to each policyholder without any input from the insurance agent – resulting in higher open rates and, ultimately, more sales. For insurance agencies, this automation process results in higher profits, and smaller chances for human error. For policyholders the convenience of being able to access their policy documents, file claims, and make payments in-app 24/7 has set a new standard in user expectations in the insurance industry.

Changes in Auto Insurance Pricing Plans

In a RAC survey, as many as 49% of drivers have reported a huge drop in mileage, and 75% of them blamed it on the pandemic. Being forced to turn their homes into offices and kindergartens/schools for their children, a lot of people simply stopped driving their cars. With fewer vehicles on the road, the risk of accidents dropped significantly, but the insurance premiums remained the same. As a result, many drivers have requested refunds from insurance companies for their auto insurance policies. Refunds are a band-aid solution at best, but they paved the way for fairer, more crisis-resilient pricing, such as the pay-per-mile model. The pay-per-mile auto insurance plans are aimed at people who drive under 7,000 miles per year. Instead of paying a fixed annual price, drivers will now have the option of paying for their car insurance based on the actual mileage they accrue per year.

Changing Commercial Policy Wording to Include Communicable Diseases

Businesses all over the world have discovered at the worst possible time that their business interruption insurance policies did not cover pandemic-related disruptions. They were protected against theft, fires, and even riots, but not from having their business temporarily closed down due to a government mandated lockdown. Many businesses in the service industry were forced to temporarily shut down due to the danger of further spreading a highly-communicable disease, and they expected their insurance policies to help bear the financial burden. According to a recent OECD report, as many as 80% of commercial insurace policies in the U.S. have been found not to clearly exclude communicable diseases. The report predicts that, in the future, commercial policies are going to have to be more transparent about outwardly including or excluding coverage for business disruption due to pandemics. This way, businesses are going to be able to make more informed decisions on which insurance company they want to choose in order to be properly prepared for all eventualities.

Conclusion

During the pandemic, the insurance industry has been forced to speed up its digitization process. It has also introduced changes that will benefit policyholders long after the pandemic is over. In the end, Covid-19 has forced the insurance market to be more transparent, prompt, and convenient when communicating with policyholders in the future.

Running a business is not a walk in the park. Even if you have the experience and skills in the field, there are many aspects of the business that you cannot handle on your own. This is why different departments in the organization exist. In some of these departments, you need a committed and dynamic team that may not be easy to maintain when you want them in-house. You need to outsource the job to people who can respond to your requirements. One example would be the right digital marketing company.

Digital marketing is essential to your marketing strategy. Without a strong online presence, businesses in the 21st century will have difficulty in finding success. That is why you need to find the right digital marketing company to help with your online presence and ensure that your audience will find your site.

The problem is, there are so many digital marketing agencies out there. And choosing the right one is hard. In this article, we have compiled some tips that would help.

Tip #1 Set your objectives

Before looking for a digital marketing agency, you should have clarity on what you expect from them. Know your needs. Find out with your team whether you need SEO expertise or impeccable content.

The list is long if you write down what you would like from your digital marketing company. Rally your team to spend some time writing them down. You should be specific and be articulate to the representative of the digital marketing firm about this.

Tip #2 Research the agencies

The first step to hiring a digital marketing company is to search for potential agencies. Make a shortlist of potential partners and start researching about them. Know more about the services they offer, their current and past clients, their expertise and experience, and what their clients say about them. All this information is available online.

Start removing the agencies that do not fit your criteria, and you can move on to the next steps of hiring.

Tip #3 Find out the services they offer

Not all digital marketing companies are the same, and each of them has their expertise. Some may focus on SEO while others on Digital ads. Because you have listed down your expectations, you can identify the company that suits your needs.

Don’t fall into the mistake of hiring separate companies to handle your different needs. It could lead to a complicated strategy. Instead, get a company that can come up with a single strategy and use different services to achieve your business objectives.

Tip #4 Know the strengths of the company

Since digital companies are not the same, they can have a different specialty. Find a digital marketing company that works in your industry and if possible, on your niche. The benefit of hiring an agency that fits you is they are already familiar with your market, and as such, you can get better results.

Tip #5 Consider their experience

Aside from the reviews and testimonials, you should also verify if the digital marketing company has a track record of success. With thousands of digital marketers out there, you should practice due diligence when hiring. Ensure that it has developed expertise in the field. The company you should be looking for must be around long enough to understand the industry and provide clients with the most successful marketing plans and best experience.

Tip #6 Meet with the company

Set a meeting to gauge the sincerity of the company in helping you reach your business goals. In this meeting, you can also assess their strengths and weaknesses. These elements are essential in making an informed decision. It is also a perfect opportunity to convince you to get on board with their proposed strategies for you. Here, you can also understand how this company works and decide on moving forward with them.

Tip #7 Choose a digital marketing company that understands your business

To develop a successful marketing strategy, you need to choose an agency that understands you. Make sure that they listen to you and understand your objectives. Don’t settle for a company that tells you what your goals should be. A good digital marketer should develop these goals with you and help you achieve them.

Tip #8 Select the company that offers the best value and not the best price

When making a business decision, we tend to get the option with the lowest price. This does not apply when selecting a digital marketing company. Instead of looking at the best price, look for a company that offers the best value. Choose a company with the best expertise and provides the most service.

It is worth the investment when you have a marketing strategy that uses different tactics. This type of strategy goes a long way, and you will have more valuable customers.

Conclusion

There you have it, the essential tips on finding the right digital marketing company that can work with you to develop the ideal strategy for your business.

Companies need the presence of an enterprise network consultant. The role of the consultant is to identify the issues in the organization and fix them. With the complexities and changes faced in the business world, an enterprise network consultant hired makes a big difference.

Here’s as why partnering up with an enterprise network consultant is of the essence.

Prioritize You As A Client

The premier enterprise network consultant is after prioritizing you as a client in anything they do. It is therefore important to hire one to avoid software failure. Partner up with an enterprise network consultant that is just the key to success.

Provide You An End-to-End Support

Never judge a consultant by its size. Businesses would often ignore consulting firms just because they lack enough personnel. This is in regard to handling errors and providing maintenance. They instead view vendors as bigger entities with more experts and resources. The thing is that this is not always the truth.

The majority of the same have a lot of customers to give them complete support. An enterprise network consultant is dedicated to selling and building robust systems.

An enterprise network consultant is always committed to selling and building robust systems. Some support is also made available that is as comprehensive and efficient as you may need.

End-to-end consulting is also offered by it. Vendor selection, business process modeling, customized solutions, implementation, continued upgrades, and maintenance are also offered as their top services.

No time is wasted waiting for a vendor support specialist. You can now receive face-to-face and quick assistance from the enterprise network consultant. The best enterprise network consultant can offer change management, risk mitigation, industry knowledge, and software expertise. This makes CRM and ERP projects a success.

Provide Industry Expertise

Never consider it as a middleman. One provides for technical prowess, industry expertise, & commitment to complete, and comprehensive service. This is as needed by a distribution or manufacturing business. This is also to get the utmost return of investment from the software project.

Control Your Operational Costs

Hiring it help control your operational cost, service hardware, infrastructure and software costs. It was found out that forty-six percent of organizations using it reduce their yearly IT budgets. This can go by at least twenty-five percent that is the result of adopting a managed service.

The cost also becomes more predictable and better controlled taking the fixed cost expense. The upgrade costs are also lowered since the business is taken care of by it. Ongoing maintenance labor is also greatly reduced in this case.

Prevent Issues and Maintain Proactive Network

An enterprise network consultant Thailand can free you up as an owner from further issues. You can thereby concentrate on the main business goals. They often combine network availability with increased flexibility and speed. Thus, business growth is driven successfully.

These consultants support quicker upgrades and implementations. Ongoing preventative and proactive checks & enhancements also occur in the network setup. Even access to the state of the art technologies is included in the service offered by the consultants.

Certain issues are also easily prevented by the monitoring services offered by it. Tools are also further utilized by them in managing circuits, VLANs, and hardware. They also configure notifications on the system types. This way, issues in the system are prevented before interrupting business operations.

Realize partnering up with it is of the essence! Decide consulting with one for your business!

It has been a hell of a year. This year didn’t just affect our physical and mental health, but it also took a toll on many businesses. Despite that, it gives more hope for better opportunities in the coming year.

We can all agree that 2020 has been the year of many uncertainties. Even some of the biggest brands we know had closed down a few of their branches while others filed for bankruptcy. But the good news is that the pandemic opened our eyes to what has been working in the business world and what’s not. It made us realize more of what our strengths are too. Some even discovered new skills.

We now know how we can start again in this coming year, especially when it comes to business. And because of this, Entrepreneur Asia Pacific believes that 2021 is the best year to launch a business. If you’re set to run your own business, here are some ideas you might want to consider.

Food

Food is a basic necessity. Thus, it is one of the most lucrative businesses that anyone can delve into. It offers endless categories for you to explore. You can choose from various cuisines and you can even add your twist to it to draw curious customers.

Plus, the demand is high, despite having numerous competitors. In fact, the demand for food is expected to go higher, according to a study from the investment bank UBS. A decade from now, experts expect that most meals are ordered online.

Online Teaching

We also saw high demand for distance learning this year because of the pandemic. It’s a safer option than face-to-face classes. There’s no need for you to travel from one place to another to teach. And because it offers more flexibility, you have more freedom to juggle your career and life.

Online teaching offers affordability too. Because you don’t have to travel far from your home, you can reduce your financial costs. This also saves you from real estate costs.

Students and their families can also benefit from it as they too can cut costs on transportation and meals. On top of that, all of the learning materials are available online, which is more affordable.

Video Editing

Because most of us are stuck at home these days, the demand for video content increased. You can take advantage of this in the coming year and offer video editing services. It’s easy to learn plus you don’t need to purchase expensive devices.

Thanks to the advancements in technology, you can even edit videos using your phone. The best part of it is that some of the video editing apps for android and iphone come for free. It’s one of the lucrative businesses that don’t require a huge sum of money for capital.

Photo Booth

As we make progress on finding treatments for the pandemic, there is a higher chance that more doors will open for opportunities for people to host more events in the coming year. Thus, a photo booth business makes a great idea. With the rise of the use of social media, no gathering is complete without it, which makes it worth considering.

This business has numerous advantages to offer. First, it’s portable. You don’t need to rent a space for it. You can easily carry your photo booth wherever, whenever.

Aside from that, it doesn’t require a huge amount of capital. In fact, you’d only have to spend less than $5,000.

The best part of it is that you don’t need to have a huge team to start this business. This kind of business doesn’t need a lot of workers to run. You can even start on your own, then eventually expand your team to accommodate more events.

Courier Service

Since most of us are often stuck at home over the past few months, many saw the advantages of courier services more. Hence, this coming year, such kind of business might blow up too. If you have your own vehicle, you can easily start your courier service. With this kind of business, you’re able to help customers transport important documents or products. You can also expand whenever you’re ready and hire more drivers to work for you.

While the pandemic brought so many challenges this year, it made us see how we can start again in 2021. It has also taught us about what the weak spots of capitalism are, so that we can improve on them and make a better future for the business world. These business ideas will surely help you start your own business even with low capital.