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A lot of fear still remains in the accounting industry around technology, which one big four director believes can be abolished through education.
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Accountants told to 'not be afraid of technology'
05 September 2017
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KPMG Enterprise director Fleur Telford told Accountants Daily that the solution to the fear that still exists towards technology is further education.
“I think there is still a lot of, not scepticism, but a relative amount of fear around what is it, what does it actually do, will there be a big silver creature wandering around the office,” Ms Telford said.
Mr Telford said that firms should select someone from within their ranks to lead the charge on researching all the options.
“Find somebody who has a bit of a technology bent and set them the task to go and learn about what is required and how easy or difficult it would be,” Ms Telford said.
“They also need to be looking at their processes and looking at what can be automated, what is repetitious, what is simply taking information from one spot and putting it into another spot in a standard manner.”
“If they start looking for those things within their organisation and couple it with somebody who has upskilled themselves in what is available and how it all works, they can bring the two together and even small firms can put in a $5,000-$10,000 piece of software which is essentially the robot to do some of these tasks for them.”
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Ms Telford said that, like anything, when you don’t understand the technology, it can seem scary but that they should take the plunge.
“It’s not difficult, you just have to know about it. It’s like anything, it all looks a bit scary when you don’t understand it or don’t have the knowledge but once you do you think 'why didn’t I do this earlier?',” she said.
“I think the big message is to not be afraid of technology. Be curious, be experimental, and embrace what’s going on out there because it will be to their advantage in the long run.”
“The cost of technology these days is such that it's not disastrous if you implement something and it doesn't work out. It’s not like the traditional $100,000 worth of server technology, you don’t even have to buy the servers anymore and that’s the beauty of it.”
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