Piyush Gupta began his career at Ceasefire Industries Ltd as Key Account Manager. He joined Kestone in 2005 as a fresher in the operations team and moved quickly to manage key clients for Kestone. From there on in 2007, moved to Delhi to manage the branch and then to heading the business team. When Career Launcher acquired Kestone in 2008, he became part of the management committee which was also responsible to run the organization. In 2012, Piyush took over the role of President and was given the responsibility of running the organization. The role continues, just that the scope now has expanded as Kestone has become a global organization.
The pandemic threw some unique set of challenges to the insurance industry. For an industry where sales success is largely dependent on a highly trained field force and face to face conversions, restriction of movement, financial crunches faced by potential customers and a lot of other factors made the industry rethink its strategies. Another factor which impacted the morale was the dependence of customers on digital aggregators where they can compare their insurance products with ease, without the presence of any agent.
With this as a backdrop, the insurance industry players were quick on their toes and identified the everlasting advantages offered by the emerging technologies. Since outreach is the primary pain point in a covid stricken locked-down world for every industry, the insurance industry adopted the smartest way, the virtual way.
Virtual events have already earned credibility in the last one and a half year, mainly because of the flexibility they offer and options to customize an experience. According to a report by Grand View Research, in 2019 the value of the global virtual events market size was at USD 77.98 billion and it is expected that there will be a growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.2% till 2027.
To leverage this, the insurance players harnessed the power of virtual platforms through value added experiences for their field force. Through a comprehensive internal outreach designed virtually, they have been successful in restoring high morale, motivation and confidence.
A prime example of this is the Ultimate Health Insurance Advisor Expo hosted on Kestone virtual event platform. It was a one of its kind virtual event that was conceptualized to enable health insurance agents to become the New Age Insurance Advisors, one who understands the art of doing business online and is ready to win in the new normal. The event witnessed some of the biggest Expert Speakers in the country who utilized the virtual setting provided by Kestone to share their tips, advice, and best industry practices, thereby aiding attendees to unlock winning strategies. The comprehensive virtual engagement plan was as effective as any other in-person event, thus paving the way for an effective event where there were some great takeaways, motivated audiences and an ecosystem of enhanced learnings.
In other instances, leading insurance and other BFSI players came together to create specific deliberation based virtual engagements. Global industry speakers, innovators, tech leaders and key sponsors connected in real-time through holistic virtual experiences, drew a roadmap for the future and shared their latest strategies for driving innovations and workable solutions.
When it comes to the players offering health insurance services, there are plethora of activities they can engage in through virtual event platforms. With Covid-19 giving rise to completely new kind of medical crises, the health insurance service providers are already creating new products with Covid related coverage benefits and they can use virtual platforms as an effective medium to connect, reach-out to potential customers and create awareness through intuitive engagements.
They can collaborate and create joint programs with global advisors and thought leaders to create some really interesting and comprehensive engagements to offer expertise in health innovation, public policy, workforce development, research and analytics to advise global leaders, stakeholders and influencers on best practices.
Another way the industry can harness the power of virtual events is through AI enabled virtual experiences. AI has literally become the part and parcel of the modern-day data driven marketing mix. It is the common thread that is dictating the market dynamics, whether it is B2B or B2C marketing. In a digital ecosystem where users or potential customers are spending a lot of time on the internet, AI has really made the entire experience interactive. This has opened up a direct line of communication with the end users where the insurance players can deep drive into the real aspirations, expectations and preferences of the consumers.
Above all these, the industry is driven by a skilled workforce and virtual event platforms can be a new breeding grounds for new talent, with new skills desirable for the digital-first age. From virtual recruiting drive to training, virtual events can open up new gamut of possibilities as it goes along.
The industry is already actively innovating in the virtual space and virtual event is one of the key areas where they are focusing. The virtual event platforms are also showing lot of promises in terms of possibilities. In a nutshell it can be said that the virtual journey for the insurance industry is going to be an exciting one since they are already in a position where they can encash on the new trends and evolving market. Virtual platform helped them to take the game to a new level where they can add more immersive experience to the entire buying experience and create products and solutions to secure everyone from the uncertainties.