The Digital Professional

10 The Digital Professional “Oh Great, I am practicing chartered accountancy with my office at Central Park. Life is too simple and organized for you corporate guys.” Abhi showered his conventional wisdom. “Who said this? Yes! you can say that we do follow a standard format for everything, since the SOP of the Company doesn’t allow anything to go off track. But our lives are complex too and have their own set of challenges. Like your statutory due dates, even we have deadlines for everything. But thanks to our savior – the ever-changing technology, that shields us from most of the last-minute traumas and unrequired stress and rescues us almost every time,” expressed Bikash. “Well stress is a part of our day and it’s rising with every flip of the calendar. It is getting tougher to practice at present times. With the changing legislation and increased expectations from the Google-fed clients, the work pressure has increased tremendously. Earlier, the financials, which used to take only a few hours to audit, now takes an entire day or even two days to check as the compliance portions have increased to a considerable extent. Furthermore, you also need to document everything as you never know what will be construed as a professional misconduct. The personal touch that we have created cajoling our clients, is taking a toll on us. We are just locked in differentiating between the necessary and the unnecessary acts we do as a professional at different levels of our regular exercise.” Bikash looked at his friend’s pressed condition, and with a muted smile he prompted, “Why don’t you use an online scheduler to fix-up your meetings? Your Google-fed clients will easily know when your schedule is and will seek your appointment accordingly.” “Is this possible?” Abhi exclaimed. “Will my clients be able to view my schedule and ask for a meeting as and when I am available?” “WOW! That’s great and sounds wonderful!” But within this excitement and hope, the professional skepticism peeped