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Thinking ahead to 2020, a better understanding of the trends and business opportunities influencing accountancy firms isn’t for the faint hearted.
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The Power of Insight
16 December 2015
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Client expectations are rapidly changing, outsourcing is becoming increasingly prevalent and technology is disrupting traditional models. Aggressive competition from global and non-accounting origins also means firms can no longer take client loyalty for granted.
The role of ‘trusted adviser’ is up for discussion and accountants currently face a choice: do nothing, or grow and provide a more comprehensive delivery and range of advisory services.
While the future will never quite end up exactly as you initially envisage, it doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared. To help accountants adapt, change and grow to maximise value, Prime has developed a white paper, The Power of Insight.
At Prime, we’re optimistic about the future and believe the changing environment is a golden opportunity for progressive firms. Our white paper covers some of the critical areas that firms need to focus on in 2016 and beyond. To start with:
THE CLIENT EXPERIENCE journey needs to be updated so that accountants can respond to the demand for agility across multiple touch points and provide more personalised and strategic advice to clients.
Clients are now experiencing the world in a different way and so too should accountants. To remain relevant and competitive, a renewed focus on designing the client experience journey should be a key consideration to staying ahead of the curve and to creating new value frontiers.
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TECHNOLOGY will continue to play a vital role to not only boost visibility but also to facilitate the renewed client experience. Making sound and strategic investments in technology today, while providing a smooth migration and integration path to new and emerging technologies, is key.
An increased focus on mobile devices and digital platforms, and consolidating and integrating cloud-based information repositories, will reduce capital costs and increase service and employee productivity.
SOCIAL MEDIA is becoming a more sophisticated tool for marketing your business and monitoring the competitive landscape and should be leveraged to increase client engagement and loyalty.
To further client engagement, content requires a much more strategic focus on analytics to understand clients' search activity and what they are responding to, and then developing new content targeting those topics.
A strategic approach to optimised content that is easily shared will also help boost visibility and credibility in the market you want to serve.
DIVERSIFICATION requires accounting firms to deliver a more comprehensive group of services to grow and maintain that trusted adviser status. Taking an integrated complete model is the way forward to create future value.
Whether this is achieved with equity investment or by partnering up with specialised firms, diversifying the service offering grows another asset that the firm would not otherwise have had.
SUCCESSION PLANNING. The war for talent is ongoing as the need for quality professional staff at the managerial and partner levels turns into crisis mode.
Firms need the foresight to identify and manage talent and to develop new and different skill sets to smooth the retirement of senior leaders, at the same time attracting and retaining Millennials as Generation X moves into partnership.
The clear message for partners is that if accounting firms do not have a clear vision or a plan to create value for clients, they won't grow.
Prime has supported many of its partners in a number of major areas of further value creation, succession planning and execution, organic services growth and appropriate acquisition-driven growth, as well as first-class wealth management.
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