Learn all nuances and tips of a freelancer in the digital domain to succeed

The digital domain does give a lot of opportunities but we need to also ensure that we take care to be able to succeed. One needs to learn all the skills and expected pitfalls if one needs to completely be confident and successful.

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Many people envy freelancers as they have no one above them. If we all the boss and performer as well, we must learn all the pitfalls and how to avoid them. We have many choices today.  Still, this also causes confusion. Understand the world of today that is completely digital to make the right choice.

A freelancer usually runs into some problems at various stages of the project lifecycle. Some major ones are:

Negotiating the project price and service fees

Contract and legal nuances

Payment collections and payment modes availability

Invoicing and taxes

Finding the right network

All this comes with building a digital identity of your own.

Build a strong structure 

The strength of any structure comes from its base. Be it the “Taj Mahal” or our own house, the secret to strength of the structure comes from their foundation.  Though you are a freelancer, you would need to do some digital marketing of your own.

What is digital marketing?

Using digital technologies, we can reach up to many viewers and turn them into our customers.  We conduct the top digital marketing training.

This is where our course in digital marketing will help you. The main query is how is digital marketing different from traditional marketing? The traditional marketing has its channels like hoardings, pamphlets, radio, television and newspaper. This had limited policies for its customer reach-ability. Our course is the best digital marketing course in India. It will let you improve your digital skills.

Topics in the Course are as follows:

·         Introduction to Digital Marketing

·         Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

·         Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

·         Content Marketing

·         Blogging

·         Email Marketing

·         Social Media Marketing

·         Google Analytics Overview

Master the digital world


We give you the most important practical value in our course through many digital marketing classes that then become the best digital marketing course. So, join us for our foundation course as this will make you aware of all that you need to know in the digital world.

We do know with our experience with thousands of people that building a brand that sells is the primary goal of all businessmen and their team. Marketing a business becomes confusing on many occasions when we look out to find the best way to build a brand for us. Here it is important that we understand the digital domain and its pattern. We definitely need to join the digital marketing course. Do join the best digital marketing training institute. This certainly helps all of us.

We live in a digital world. The very nature of this world is fragile! Changes and upgradation form the basic properties of this world so it becomes a part of survival mechanism that we stay updated with the digital trends.

If in earlier times, it was the survival of the fittest, now it is survival of the web enabled or digitally skilled.

For instance, no one now uses a physical bank passbook. The passbook is  a mobile app where you view your account balances and transfer money from savings to investment accounts. The credit card is now one’s currency. An online brand should build a unique identity. This is quite essential for everyone, especially freelancers.

We must know that the new world is digital. Our challenge in this new, transient and moving landscape is to make our digital assets to stand out, be visible and noticed in a morphing crowded and noisy world. They need to grow, move, inspire and motivate. Creation is not enough. Brand and business building is still necessary but we do need to change our approach by understanding the trends of the new world.

We need to understand that all of social media is interlinked. It is essentially about connecting with the people. These could be both niche customers, potential customers. These are people who are interested in what we do or who share similar interests and circles and in the digital world, hubs with you. It’s about building relationships and networking. As a freelancer, you would need to do this consistently.

This is the new trend and fortunately, it is also very affordable and democratic. It only needs to be designed properly and not make too much of a garish impact. All one needs to do is tell the readers who we are and what we can do for them. When this is done properly, people do notice. These are people from all over the globe not just the ones is our backyard or even city. This is why it needs to take all aspects into consideration and design them with care and expertise. This may sound simple but it is not really to be taken too lightly.

Care does need to be taken to reach out to all who may be interested in what you are doing. A little care can make a huge difference. Anyone who wishes to promote themselves can indeed do so with a proper strategy. Here, the most important factor is understanding our customer, both potential and real. This is only way the campaign will reach out to the people we wish to reach out to. Email should never go randomly to everyone as then it becomes a waste of time, both to us and the people we reach out to. We must focus, focus and focus

Do join the best digital marketing institute in Mumbai. We have understood all the challenges which is why we are considered the best digital marketing training institute in India.

We all must master the essentials to remain relevant and current in the new world’s essentials.

Even as a freelancer, you definitely need to learn the above and we shall surely guide you as we have guided many others.

Content is king in the digital domain. Let us make this top class.

Content utilizes whitespace, headings, short paragraphs, and relevant images to make the page easier to absorb and increases the user’s time on the page. Here, innovation has actually created values for almost everyone. Let us understand this and step into digital transformation.

Image source : marketreportgazette.com

Business Model Innovation and tranformation is all about finding new and better ways to create value for customers and extracting value for firms as well as their business partners. Suppliers and distributors can also benefit from this.

This can be seen from the example of Toyota, which though a generalist, started focussing on competitive advantages through economies of scale.

Value extraction strategies would also need to work on balancing and/or trading off between profitability, growth and risk.

For this, a company may need to forgo short term profitability to grow market share so that this  provide higher levels of longer term profits. It can reduce risk by enhancing customer experience and engagement. It could be done through product innovation and differentiation.

This is how markets evolve.

Market Evolution

Ingraining an ‘organizational capability’  in creation of value is indispensable while competing in global markets. The questions underlying value creation are whom to cater to and how to do it. This of course, in todays world, has a global dimension.

In the automobile industry, for example Henry Ford focussed on productivity. His approach led to a business model where the competitive advantage of lower costs and prices resulted in greater market share and greater economies of scale.

The Japanese, who entered late in the global market, had a different approach. They focused on reliability and quality to deliver value and eventually introduced solutions such as service guarantees and extended warranties to enhance customer switching costs and loyalty. We share some insights we have learnt in the process of studying them.

Insight 1:

 Innovation, Renovation and Continuous Improvement and Integration

Simply put, anything that offers benefit is value and different firms are the sources of different value. For instance in the technology domain, Intel, GSK, and Boeing create value on technology, research and engineering dimensions.  Dell, Indigo or Flipkart rely on efficiency and speed as the major determinants of value. Some others like Coke, Microsoft Windows, Google and Porsche rely on customer experience, aspiration and sheer hedonistic brand appeal as value drivers in the marketplace. All of this is a good thing to invest in.

Insight 2

Create Future Value

During the second half of 2013, even though its operating income went up, the stock value of Apple came down. In the same period, Google had positive growth on both the metrics. Both the firms differ on product portfolio – one is a hard product based firm (i-Phone, i-Pad) and the other predominantly is a software (Android) and service based firm (search, ads). They both compete on OS. We know both of them have a different story to reveal

Investors are fundamentally interested in future returns.  So firms should strive to create future value.

Insight 3:

Anticipate the Future

When someone asked the famous Canadian player, Wayne Douglas Gretzky the secret of his success, he said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been”. This means anticipating the future. In the business context; we have to be where the action is. Currently the action is in the Asian markets and not in Europe or the US. One needs to capitalise on this.

Further, value creation in dynamic. Competitive environments require commitment of resources to help develop assets and investment in process management capabilities.

 Insight 4: Nurture Off-Balance Sheet, Market-based, Intangible Assets

In all companies, especially the major ones, 25 percent of the value is visible on balance sheet and 75 percent of the assets like value of the brand, value of customers, value of our distribution networks, value of human capital and value of intellectual property rights. These are not visible on the balance sheet. As a firm if we nurture only the assets that appear on the balance sheet, this is sure to invite trouble. We need to learn the art of managing off-balance sheet market based intangible assets. For instance, Flipkart’s valuation is based on future earnings from its customer base. They utilise their warehousing networks and delivery/logistic capabilities.

Insight 5: Market-Based Assets and Eco-Systems: Collaborate to Compete

The web has created many new ecosystems now. Two decades ago, Microsoft as a firm had actually collaborated with competitors to grow. Collaboration in the form of pre-installation by Dell, HP and the IBMs of the world and oriented Microsoft into a B2B firm. From this, they forced application developers to focus more on the Windows platform which owned a massive consumer base using the Windows OS.

Insight 6: There is no such thing as Global Strategy

Brands as platforms aid growth and expansion. Today, the world is moving from longer-cycle to shorter cycles and tangible dimension to intangible dimension.  We need to recognise and use this to our advantage.

Insight  7: Different Horses for Different Courses

To cope with differences in products and markets, we need to accommodate varying product and go-to-market strategies. This requires that firms apply different business models all over the world. Different approaches are required in each market.

This is what shall also give us results.

Insight 8: Leveraging Market Disruptions

The Indian e-commerce market, had its own set of growth pangs. Initially, the Indian consumer would pay only after physical inspection of the product. Here, Flipkart initially copied Amazon’s e-retailing model but ran into resistance from the Indian consumer for whom seeing a product before purchase and the option of paying by cash instead of credit card was important. After this, Flipkart adjusted it’s go-to-market model and made appropriate changes in the order-delivery system, turned this disadvantage (higher costs due to the need to decentralise warehousing) into an advantage – via same day localized delivery. To overcome distribution bottle necks, the firm recruited approximately 40,000 local delivery agents who would deliver the goods on two wheelers. This definitely worked to their advantage.

Insight 9: Revise Business Models from Developed West to Emerging East 

With a shift in centre of gravity to Asia, companies have the advantage of large and growing local markets and can enhance their market position based on pricing and cost advantages which in turn rest on process and product simplification and scale.

Insight 10: Innovate in Emerging Markets for Emerging Markets 

Innovation is no longer a story of cheap hands copying Western products. The value creating processes for targeting emerging markets might involve innovating in pricing and making the product affordable

Insight 11: Opportunity Cost – the Biggest Risk is not Taking Risks 

Each decision, especially on investment does have an impact on the firm’s position in a specific geographic market.  Usually, companies in the West spend too much time in evaluating markets, thereby postponing risks. It is better we study the scenario and plunge in. For, the biggest risk is NOT taking risks to invest in market growth opportunities.

Insight 12: Redefining Markets – From Products to Services and Solutions 

At an individual level typically the capacity utilization of a car, that we could call an asset, is roughly about 4% (assuming we drive 30 minutes to work and the same 30 minutes to come back which translates to 1 hour out of 24 hours). A good use of the car would then be to rent it out or we using rented cars, which is what is happening today. 

Conclusion

These innovations is really opening our mind set to a new way of thinking. We need to do this to stay in the dynamic world of today. This is how we can use content to create a brand with value.

Freelancers learn some basic tips to remain on top of the league NOW

We all need to learn some basic steps to remain successful as freelancers. The digital world does make this easily possible. All one needs to do is take the necessary steps.

Image source : www.digitalmarketing.com

Though we may think this is extremely simple to do, we must know that like any domain, one must follow certain basic guidelines. Again, like everything else one needs to know what is required so that we know whether to get into this or not. This is certainly not impossible but doable. We share some basic tips we have learnt in our experience of training freelancers so that you succeed too.

The first thing we must realise is that we need to definitely create an identity of our own and then work accordingly. We need to be visible in all the domains relevant to us so that people come to us for their work. While this is very democratic, it is also very competitive so we need to maintain our quality too.

Quality plus following the following tips could definitely make us carve a digital identity and be successful freelancers. It is often said success does not come automatically. It comes with effort. Here, the right kind of effort and direction is also very important and relevant.

Do go through the following and follow them to the maximum extent possible,

01. Controlling our finances

We need to ensure we have adequate savings to fall back on in the event that our cash flow dries up, and educate ourself on the business staples of invoicing and chasing payments

Understanding pricing, copyright, contracts and so on is just as important as the creative work if we want to be successful and sustain our career in the long term.

All freelancers need help from – an accountant, ideally – or scour resources provided online, to make sure terms and conditions on contracts are in order.

02. Making contacts

Getting ourselves noticed is one of the most important tasks for newly minted freelancers. Asking personal contacts is the most natural place to start, and often the most effective. In this world, word of mouth sells more than anything else.

03. Managing time

Whatever your approach, set a clear list of achievable tasks every day and try to stick to it as much as possible within the standard working hours. You also need to be flexible and prioritise on a daily basis, as requirements and deadlines can move.

Here, one does need to keep deadlines in mind and work accordingly. In a sense, we are our own boss so we do need to work accordingly too.

04. Dealing with clients

As daunting as securing a commission might seem to freelancers starting out, it is the relationship that follows that can test your mettle most. Clients are clients, whether one is a company or an individual. This must be kept in mind and applied accordingly. We know everyone is different and we do need to show respect, manage expectations, be able to hand-hold and know when to push back against unreasonable or creatively unsound demands.

Most of the time, misunderstandings take place due to lack of understanding. This is exactly what one should guard against always. For this, clarity and completeness is important is important while beginning itself.

Outlining what a client gets for the fee one quotes can be helpful. One must outline how many concepts you will provide and how many amends they can make. Sometimes things need to be more flexible than this, but we need to start this conversation at the beginning, for it saves all sorts of hassles and misunderstandings.

05. Managing money

Dealing with the legal and financial requirements is one of the more overwhelming facets of self-employment. This however is important and needs to be always kept in mind. Ultimately, this after all is the purpose of our working itself, to a large extent. This should indeed become part of one’s manner of working.

06. Setting our rates

Setting a pricing is one of the most difficult and yet important aspects of freelancing. As we work on more and more of these jobs you begin to get a sense of what the going rate is and can set our own fees accordingly. We should not keep it too low for it to look cheap but not too high to make it unaffordable.

07. Knowing when to say no

If we feel you might have to compromise on quality by taking on too much work, it's time to turn down a job.

This needs to be evaluated before one begins.

08. Avoiding the pitfalls

The biggest danger, according to many freelance veterans, is selling ourself too cheaply. It's important to understand early on that the fee you receive also needs to cover your business expenses and tax, and you need to price your services accordingly. We must value our time for only then, others will also do the same.

09. Avoiding burnout

Taking a break seems to be one of the hardest things to do when you're a freelancer. As we know that holiday is unpaid, notions of work-life balance go out of the window. Not being able to say "no" means work can encroach on evenings and weekends, and before you know it you have been working five years straight without a break. This is not healthy at all.

10. Finding an ideal workspace

Whether it's the kitchen table, the back bedroom, a shared studio space or a rented office, a workspace preference usually depends on the individual and their disposition. Is a day without human interaction anathema? Can we effectively separate home from work?

In sum

All this is equally applicable for all freelance word, be it graphics, content development or brand building.

Today’s word has made this very much possible and doable. The step however has to be taken by us.

The one requirement that is paramount here is passion to learn and then apply the lessons learnt.  

Freelancers - become viral by building your brand and digital identity NOW

A personal brand is valuable when establishing authority as a freelancer and creating a long-lasting impression with clients.

Image Source : udemy.com

Whether you use a design tool like Canva or outsource your branding to an agency, personal branding should be one of the first things on your to-do list. Along with a memorable logo, your personal brand should also include a business name. You can brand your business after your own name or a third-party name.

Another element of your personal brand is your online identity. This typically includes a dedicated website and social media accounts where you can display your logo and business name, portfolio, testimonials, and services. We strongly recommend that every freelancer should have a website, especially if they work with clients remotely.

What really is a persona? It is one’s identity.  It is quite easy to create one digitally in today’s world. It does of course require a lot of planning. For this, we do need to understand the whole digital world. For this, we have to spend a little time in understanding the new world that we are in now.

It has never been easier to share our story. The digital media has made it so simple. However, we must know this is to be done constantly so that we are known all over the internet. How do we do this?

Technology 

The best product or service in the world is of no use without getting it out there to connect with your audience. For this, we need to identify who our audience is and then move forward. Here's the good news. It's never been easier to get your message out to reach to everyone.  And it only gets easier as technology continues to advance.

Strategy

It has never been easier to get your story noticed by people.Still, though it has never been easier to get your story out there, here's the bad news.It's never been harder to get people to listen or to care.

Nobody will care about your brand or marketing unless it speaks to them.

As almost everyone is telling their story online, you have to come up with a better strategy.

We know there is no sure path to marketing success, but the one sure path to failure is not having a strategy.

Once you have a real strategy that has been thought about completely, you have a chance of building a story online that will connect with your audience.

Connect, connect and connect

For this, first of all we need to understand everything about our audience, who are essentially both current and potential customers.

The fact is social media is about connecting with the right people. These would be potential customers, people who are interested in what we do or who share similar interests and circles and in the digital world, hubs with you. It’s about building relationships and networking, not direct selling, although selling usually that does come as a result.

The one way to protect our reputation online and also build content is allow place for more branding. There are many websites out there where you can list your business locally and these listing will show up in the search engines.

The profile sites give us a chance to talk about our business and also gives us an opportunity to include our logo. This is quite powerful, and if we can get our profile on as many websites as we can then we increase our chance locally of gaining a number of new clients to our website. This in turn should result in more profits.

Here is a list of profiles sites we recommend you sign up for:

www.facebook.com

www.linkedin.com

www.justdial.com

www.indiamart.com

https://sites.google.com

https://plus.google.com

www.twitter.com

www.instagram.com

www.meetup.com

www.printerest.com

Go out there online and let the whole world know about you and your business.

Never stop growing the network (networking)
Expand the network of contacts and potential clients. Ask the best, most powerful, most influential friends or clients to spread word about your services. Word of mouth is actually the best way to go forward.

Network the networks (networking) 

Network with friends and then request them to network with their friends. There’s power in numbers. Utilize this network to get the word out to your people who know people who know people. Don’t spam but give a personal touch.
Someone ultimately knows someone that can help you out...and believe it or not...they will want to. When we do this, we should not focus on getting a referral or lead. Instead, the focus should be on helping others. If you help them first, for instance, by adding value to their life/ business, they’ll help you later.

Listen. Listen, listen

Find your ideal clients. Then start following them! Spend a lot of time listening to them and their thoughts. By doing this, you’ll be amazed what they will tell you about their concerns. With this, you shall definitely be able to write in a better way for them.

Become an influencer

An influencer is someone who influences others. With a great digital marketing presence and strategy, we could aim for this ourself. For, having done all of this, you can indeed be an influencer yourself in the digital world.

Build a convincing strategy

This could be related through articles, blog posts, public speaking or by publishing a special report. One needs to be at it constantly, though. 

There are many such options in the online world.

Join us to understand how to enter this world.

Romance and succeed with Google and GMB by becoming viral in the digital world

The popularity of google is clear as it is now not just a noun, but a verb. For, many people do say ‘Google it” nowadays when trying to find out some information. We definitely need to know more about Google and leverage its strength in the digital world.

Image Source: attitudemarketing.com

1)      GMB is cost-effective:
2)      Add photos
3)      Add videos
4)      Properly categorize the business:
5)      Optimize the listing description

Google sends 50% of the traffic for free. We just need to use it to the best extent possible. For this, we must know what people are looking for. This is key principle of business itself, whether traditional or digital. The only advantage in the digital world is we have the power of search engines to utilise for free.

For this, we need to always focus on the users and not just on search engines when developing our optimization strategy. We need to ask ourselves what creates value for our users. These users are after all, our potential customers. 

Hence, we do need to invest in the quality of our content. This would earn natural backlinks benefits both the users and drives more qualified traffic to your site.

This is what would build our business on google effectively to leverage the digital world. Google is fair and completely democratic however, the competition too is global. For such a wide audience, we need to build content in such a manner that everyone can relate to it. This is not too difficult but does need care and commitment.

Google my business (GMB) is an app gives business owners more control of what shows in the search results when someone searches a given business name on Google. Naturally, there may be many who get shown but the quality of your content should be such that it should be shown when it is searched for.

The Benefits of Google My Business for Businesses, especially SMEs

People go online several times a day to find information to make their lives easier. Knowing this, Google has developed a way for businesses to stand out: it has developed GMB or Google My Business.

Essentially, google my business allows business owners to edit their information that shows up in a Google Search. This mainly include open hours, address, phone number, and photos.

Customers can review businesses about how the business is and business owners can respond to their reviews.

Google My Business mainly allows business owners to post updates about announcements or sales. There are currently 4 different types of post. They are: What's New, Events, Product, and Offer.

On each and every post type, users can add a description, photo, and link. We can also add an optional call-to-action button to posts. These options are book, buy, order online, learn more and sign up.

Why is google my business important and why should I care?

The benefits of google my business are:

1)      Increase visibility in search.

2)      Better experience for the buyers.

3)      More traffic to your website, social channels and so on.

A well formed GMB page helps google understand more about your business: who you are, what services/products you sell, where you’re located at, and what your website is.

The important thing is, the more google knows about you, the more the number of searches your GMB listing can appear in. 

Usually, when people type the name of our business, it often displays our knowledge panel alongside our website links.

When Google knows more about what we do and sell, it can help match you with other types of search queries.

Benefits of GMB

As we know,  GMB is a free business listing on one of the biggest search engines on the internet, putting your business in front of many potential customers.

There are of course several other prominent directories online for different industries. These listings usually come at a price, whether it’s a monthly fixed rate or yearly rate.

On the other hand, the leader, GMB listing gives potential clients easy access to your hours of operation, phone number, website and directions with a click of a button—all at no cost to us. Our free GMB profile also gives customers an inside look at your business by giving insight into your busiest hours as well as review ratings.

If we have a limited budget, every dollar counts, and having such a valuable resource for free can allow you to direct your resources elsewhere.

According to Google, businesses with photos see 35% more clicks on their website and 42% higher requests for driving directions in Google Maps. 

Photos should be at least 720 pixels wide by 720 pixels high and JPG or PNG files. 

Videos must be:

·                        30 seconds or shorter

·                        100 MB or smaller

·                        720p resolution or higher

Videos  add some variety to our profile and make us stand out among other businesses in our category. These however are optional and not mandatory."

We need to add a primary industry category, or “keyword” to describe your business.

Some people do not know that we can add up to five additional categories. We need to make use of all the five categories.

The primary category is always the main one while the remaining five categories incorporate local SEO keywords that act as additional descriptors. So, if we an educational institute in Mumbai, we must write Education as the primary category and Mumbai and additional details as secondary categories.

Your Google Maps listing has a character limit, so we must include local SEO keywords that describe our business. For instance, instead of “realtor with excellent customer service”, we could write “Dallas realtor with minimum costs” or something similar.

So, we do ask you to google it with GMB effectively and suggest the following checklist

Google Checklist

a.       Description

b.      Keywords

c.       Categories

d.      Images

e.       Videos (optional) 

In Sum

We have a global customer base even if we are just an SME. This is the power of the digital world. To use it effectively, we just need to understand and use it effectively. Let us begin now.

Let a great product do the talking for you, both digitally and otherwise

A great product does get noticed by customers. Earlier, it was through word of mouth publicity and regular ads. With the world soon becoming digital, information started spreading so rapidly that great products started selling rapidly all over the world.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson once stated with style, "Marketing is for companies that have sucky products." While we wouldn't go quite that far, we agree that having a great product does a lot of your marketing for you.

One must invest time in understanding what the users are looking for and then build it accordingly.

The quality of your product can lead to viral growth, which means you can scale back some of your marketing efforts. A great example of this is DropBox. DropBox did almost no marketing in its initial stages, instead relying on a great product to inspire word-of-mouth recommendations and viral growth. And it worked.

If you do have a great product and you can get it in the hands of a few key influencers, you might be able to leverage off this viral growth. Just remember that companies like DropBox are edge cases. Even companies with fantastic products have poured resources into marketing. For most companies, viral growth will supplement traditional marketing tactics, not replace them. We do need to change our approach also.

Three powerful forces:

1.     There is continuous change in customers’ needs, priorities, and preferences, much more than ever before.

2.     There is global innovation: digitization tools enable an exponential increase in the speed of organizations’ ability to harness and apply new innovative technologies to bring products and services to the market faster, aligning them with evolving customer needs. In the digital world, on a global scale, people at any level can collaborate with colleagues, partners, or customers anywhere in the world to create better ways to do their work,  co-create mutual value products and services that people value and cherish.

3.     Global markets and competition: the pace of communication and ability to share information globally across customers and organizations means that new customer needs, new technologies, and new competitors can appear at anytime from anywhere in the world.

Shifting leadership styles to adapt, grow and innovate

What is crucial to success is for the organization to develop the ability and the capacity to shift and target what is needed in the organizational context, is to adapt and grow and deliver organizational strategic objectives. This is achieved by understanding the operating mindsets, and how they impact on the current organizational culture.

We of course need to understand and define processes too.

Processes to enable innovation in a Digital World

Earlier, engineering was totally manual but it is automated now.

With the entry of even more automation in the digital world, we need to transform how we operate, from one end of the value chain to the other. There have been breakthroughs in many areas such as communications technology, analytics, Big Data and the Internet of Things.

These have ushered in an entirely new set of tools to generate more value for customers. Essentially, the goal of reengineering has notchanged, but the means have become significantly more powerful.

For instance, companies have automated specific manual tasks, such as factory work or office functions. For example, Uber, manages more than 1 million drivers around the world with software that allocates work and provides feedback on how the work was performed. Similarly, cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services have automated the provisioning of services, allowing end users to bypass company IT departments and sign up for software services with a credit card.

The processes we suggest are

·         Make your functioning totally democratic. Share your functioning  We need to reengineer the entire process and use an Agile development process, in which the company deploys a solution quickly and uses a disciplined test-and-learn approach to define the model that works across functions. The primary objective should to be to create processes that are simple, intelligent, shared, automated and real time.

·         Simple does not mean foolish. The processes should be intelligent too. Fortunately, digital tools enable companies to gather data in vast quantities, We need to use them well. Something as basic as a feedback form should be shared with everyone so that the right steps could be taken to correct it.

·         Keep a person (human) responsible for each process though everything could be automated. Essentially, this is required as one cannot take a computer or a digital device to task.

·         Ensure real time proceses function quickly. For instance, if someone has purchased a product, they should definitely hear quickly, in fact, instantly from you. The process should be designed for this.

Checklist

a.       Making a list of stakeholders who are always help informed

b.      Ensuring person in charge of each process

c.       Devices and platforms catered to, for each process

d.      Person to whom issue should be escalated to, if there is an issue

e.       A report of the actions taken to resolve all glitches, if any.

f.        Learning from all past mistakes so that it is never repeated.

In sum

With all of this, even if there is an issue with your product, it can be addressed quickly and we would then have everything in control. Even mistakes when addressed could improve our product and in fact improve it. Improvisation in fact always happens only after failures. So, even failures could be a stepping stone to success.

For, it is often said that nothing fails when we wish to correct it. A good product is therefore one which keeps its ears open through its team. Digital platforms do make it possible for us to implement this. Hence, we definitely need to be visible on all social media platforms to enable our customers, both potential and current to reach us. This shall surely make it a win win situation for us and our clients. This is what defines a good, in fact great product.