Now is the moment for accounting professionals to consider how they’ll push into the advisory role

cog_login — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 01:32:12 +0000

A Hot Date For The Advisory Accountant,

The opinion piece by COG Branding‘s Luke Sullivan is now live at the link below. Its purpose is to look at why creating new professional networks doesn’t have to be hard, specifically, entertaining what a branding agency and accountant relationship would look like.

If there was ever a moment for Accountants Professionals to consider how they’ll push into the advisory role – it was yesterday. The rate of change in the accounting profession is rapid and will continue to leave those reluctant to evolve in the vexing dust of 2020.

For Accountants Professionals to thrive beyond this year’s carnage will not only require a strong vision as to how Advisory Services will actually function for them, it will demand swift and assertive action to instigate this new approach, which should include a focus towards delivering a greater level of client advocacy and value that is served today.

As technology gouges through the Accountants Professionals service suite, trying to pinpoint what exactly the clients of tomorrow will pay them for will be harder to answer. One thing is clear, thinking differently will be paramount.

Narrowing down a brief for Accountants Professionals with a SME client base that addresses the push into Advisory services will include the premise that Accountants will need to be more than a just great tax advisor. Becoming intensely client-focused, delivering accuracy and relevance in services that are loaded with added value, and becoming agents of transformation while maintaining the positioning as a true small business champion will round out this brief.

Accountants Professionals can easily add these layers of value by broadening networks, creating new relationships and increasing capabilities to then pass on in the form of empowering information and solutions. With an identified need to increase relevance as a direct response to the ever present future threats of redundancy and irrelevancy, an evolutionary pathway forward here seems clear – become a hub of digital knowledge and get more connected.

Considering today that on the ASX200, Information Technology (eg: Xero) is larger in sector than Telecommunications (eg: Telstra) and Utilities (eg: AGL), it’s an appropriate snapshot to use in influencing Accountants Professionals that stepping into an Advisory role is actually to avoid more compliance work, and to acquire functional knowledge around areas like business strategy and transformation, IT, data, cybersecurity, and eCommerce.

You can read the article here on Public Accountant, the offical journal of the institute of public accountants.

Deloitte Small Business Digital Champions Project

cog_login — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 22:42:23 +0000

Generate is engaged as a small business advisory to the Deloitte Small Business Digital Champions Project.

The Small Business Digital Champions project is an Australian Government initiative, they want to make it easier for small businesses to engage with digital technology and reach their potential, to assist them in being more effective, being more competitive and ultimately, more profitable.

As an Australian focused Small To Medium Enterprise (SME) consultancy we have encountered many small businesses, and what we know to be true is that all business owners need a trusted partner to guide them through the myriad of problems and new technology. What is known to be true is that when small businesses are digitally engaged, they are more likely to be making more money, creating more jobs, and more likely to be innovating new products and services.

Our Sydney SME Consultancy knows this project can have a large impact, not only for individual small businesses but also the small business community in which these businesses operate. Digital enables business owners to work smarter, not harder (which is often the default position for small busies owners to take). Sadly, research shows that more than 50% of businesses say that if they were able to save time on business processes, they would spend the additional time on work as opposed to other important elects to ones life such as time with family, sleep, or exercise.

Each of the businesses Generate Business Solutions works with as part of the Deloitte Small Business Digital Champions Project are paired with a Digital Mentor. The mentors have been selected based off their leadership and success in business or the demonstrated digital innovation represented within their organisations. Each Digital Mentor has leveraged technology to build their own success, and this knowledge along with their experiences and learnings will be shared with the Digital Champions.

Generate are excited to be involved and work with our partners at COG Branding to advise and execute projects and to have been engaged to provide our expert SME services to Australian businesses that have been vetted by the high calibre consultants in Deloitte.

Digital technology is easy to understand but hard to implement into an exisiting business. Technology in general is a powerful force that drives business forward, it can revolutionise a business by lowering the costs of overheads and operating costs. It can also assist a small to medium sized businesses deliver products and services faster, react to changing customer demands, and embrace new customers locally or internationally that want to purchase from an eCommerce website.

Generate understand that small business owners struggle to really understand how new technology can be injected into an existing business to reduce day to day challenges. When a business is time poor and stressed – technology can often increase this when it is difficult and the unknown.

There is an inherent power to the digital transformation of a small business. Generate has transformed hundreds of small to medium businesses and have seen the benefits of taking a business online and into the technological age. Most businesses in Australia are small (just shy of 100%) and they contribute around $393 billion annually to our economy (specifically in 2018). Small business Australia employs just under 6 million people which is half of the Australian private sector workforce. Not many people truly understand that small businesses create the majority of Aussie jobs and drive the future success off our nation.

Data from ABS shows that only half of Australian businesses have a website, and of these less are using technology and software for accounting and invoicing. But again, further research has proven that when small businesses are digitally engaged, more than half the time they are more likely to be growing revenue, creating jobs and innovating new products or services.

The Small Business Digital Champions Project will help small businesses to be more effective, competitive and ultimately, more profitable. Generate’s role is to use our Sydney Marketing Agency partners to guide our small business clients through their digital transformation journey by providing specific advice and executing digital activity such as websites, eCommerce, Google Ads, Social Media, Email Marketing and connecting CRMs and inventory management softwares.

As a service Generate understand our professional opinion and advice is sought after, and this position in the The Small Business Digital Champions Project will allow us to assist and provide practical, industry specific advice that will highlight the impacts going digital will have in helping our small business clients reach their full potential.

Digital tools are numerous, and Generate ensure our clients are introduced to the most appropriate for their business and market. The atomisation and digitisation of business processes frees up time for business owners – this is critical to not only the business, but the well being of the people in the business and our general society in general. Reducing stress and anxiety levels via well built and implemented technology and digital products is something Generate know to be true.

A key service offering from Generate is being closely connected to a full marketing team locally here in Sydney. Here our digital transformations for small to medium sized businesses are at call and managed. Our digital specialists undertake initial digital assessments of our clients digital touchpoints and assets, gathering key business information and identifying the specific digital requirements which will deliver the most benefit.