Vasily Alexeev: Pandemic Served as a Catalyst for Change in Business Processes and People’s Minds
UpTrader CEO talks on his personal experience with the final move online.
UpTrader, a developer of fintech services for Forex companies, participated in the conference and expo Virtual Vision Finance. What is so special about this? How the business processes of global companies changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic? What’s in store for the market? UpTrader CEO Vasily Alexeev found out.
“It’s our first time as a participant in an online conference. Our overall impression, as well as the analysis of main trends mentioned by the speakers, allow us to draw conclusions as to what’s in store for us in the future.
Summarizing the main points, more new clients coming in, increased trading volume. People are staying at home, they have nothing to do (in a broad sense), some are looking for new sources of income, some want thrilling experiences. Moving further. Visiting banks and other financial organizations is limited. As lockdowns are lifted, new habits can seriously impact the pre-COVID workflows. Here we have increased volume of payments in alternative finance, firstly it’s cryptocurrency, KYC services also gain in significance. We believe that all this calls for changes in regulation.
COVID-19 is, of course, a disaster, but on the other hand, it’s a catalyst of processes. Some of them had had a focus before, some of them had been evolving naturally, but COVID accelerated all of them, gave them impetus. We’re talking about takeovers and mergers in the market: those with small online presence, or who couldn’t adapt to the changes, were forced to disappear from the market or to become a part of someone who could. Another consequence is the clear transition to the experience economy.
The three pillars of the experience economy are engagement, service, and entertainment. In view of this, participants of panel discussion several times brought up a challenge faced by Forex industry — gambling sector. The latter’s product is more engaging & entertaining, has fewer intellectual barriers for new players, and adapts to new trends much quicker. However, let’s get back to the pandemic. Another response to the coronavirus is the ‘antiviral marketing’. In a rush to capitalize on the COVID hysteria, thousands of marketing professionals across the world rushed to use the topic of vius and the quarantine (to be completely honest, we at UpTrader also followed this urge). However, as was mentioned at the conference (and we completely agree), it’s gradually becoming a faux pas to exploit the pandemic, and experts even introduced new terms: ‘COVID marketing fatigue’ and ‘COVID burnout’.
The reason is that people really do suffer from emotional burnout, tired of constantly being reminded of the disease, and the restrictive measures, so it’s clear they should be given a break.
Speaking of the downsides of the expo, I think the two main ones are:
1. no face-to-face contact;
2. no hangouts and afterparties, however:
As for the upsides, they are more:
— easier to visit all booths;
— possible to watch all appearances without and not miss anything (personally, in the evenings I watched the recordings of Cyprus panel discussions with a glass of wine, enjoying the fiery Moscow sunsets);
— you can talk to 3–4 contacts at the same time without anyone feeling ignored;
— no hand-outs or any printwork, no business cards or brochures, cotton bags, and useless calendar notebooks. So, better for both marketing budget and ecology!
There were, of course, many funny incidents, like heavy spam in the booths of competitors (the industry colleagues join your online chat and start unashamedly promote themselves in your virtual booth). Also, it’s all those unusual, amusing phrases like “online workshop at online conference”
In general, entrepreneurs all over the world suddenly saw that it’s not necessary to fly and spend money on trips to have productive communication with partners. People engaged in Forex industry, much like those in IT, by definition more open to remote work, find in it the same challenges as people working in other sectors do. Difficulties in communication with coworkers when solving current tasks, lack of informal communication, blurred lines between work and private life. We see how the coronavirus pandemic forces almost every worker and employer to reassess the basics of how their activity is organized. We live in a new world, with new formats, and the pandemic merely served as a catalyst for change in business processes and people’s minds. However, here’s a rhetorical question: if to keep pace with the trends and changes it’s necessary to endure a crisis and the impact of a pandemic, is it worth it to carve a good place for yourself in Forex?”
