Saturday, March 3, 2007
Live for today, Plan for tomorrow, Learn from yesterday then let it go
I've been saying something similar to this to my aquaintences for many years. Recently heard something similar in an advertisment (don't remember for what product / service). Would be interested in knowing who originally said / wrote it.
Recent Exchange Re: Public Accounting
Hope all is going well. Been thinking about the usual stuff recently. Decided that my passion lies in being a forward thinking, future oriented, visionary / strategist. I get giddy at the prospect of effecting real change. Yet, here I am a backward looking, history based, minutiae dispenser. This being the paradox of my existence. I know I will not be happy as long as I'm doing what I'm doing the way I'm doing it, but I don't really move toward changing. The rut. SSDD What does that say about the strength of my convictions?
Another quandary. I truly believe that the profession I'm in can and must change in order to be truly viable 10 years from now. Yet there are no, zero, nada real change agents moving in the profession. It, the public accounting profession, seems to me to be very much like what the American auto industry was like 60 (+ ) years ago. Many players dominated by a few large ones, but reasonably competitive amongst themselves and egocentric enough to believe that there was no way they would ever be realistically be challenged for market dominance. "We invented the assembly line for cryn' out loud." Yet slowly forces were afoot that would devastate the industry. The American auto industry ceased to meaningfully innovate at sometime in the late 1950's or early 1960's. They failed to listen to the creator of JIT manufacturing / supply chain theory, an American (Drucker). His impact was on the Japanese auto industry 20 - 30 years before the Americans started listening. They were forced to start using aluminum and materials other than steel by the U.S. Gov't (emissions standards). They are a full decade (at least) behind foreign auto makers in alternative fuel vehicles and are only beginning to move in that direction at government demand (emissions standards). Waiting for the government to regulate and dictate your innovation is a poor, at best, survival strategy.
What are the similarities in the accounting industry? The local / regional accounting firms have ceased to innovate at all. The basic processes, procedures, and output have not changed one iota since these firms put a PC on every desk (about 15 years ago). The local / regional firms are not following the lead of the innovators (the big 4) and are in no position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves when the large firms falter. The local / regional firms rely on a complex government regulatory environment to preserve their market. That in and of itself is an incredibly vulnerable position. They notice not. There seems to be a lack of understanding as to what the basic nature of the business is - information vs. product delivery (tax returns / financial statements). Because of this lack of understanding, the profession as a whole is not adapting to the dramatically changing environment.
70% of individual tax filers can file their taxes for free - shrinking market. Most, if not all, small business owners have access to accounting software that can effectively produce their own financial documents accurately and timely. An entire service area is disappearing - write-up. None of the local / regional firms are staffed with people who can use the data they have about their business clients to sit down with them and reasonably produce and explain projections / forecasts for those business that would actually add value to their client relationship. The "old guard" is hoping that the business can survive until they retire. All the while, the core of their business is being hollowed out to the extent that they may have no value left when they want to sell.
Another quandary. I truly believe that the profession I'm in can and must change in order to be truly viable 10 years from now. Yet there are no, zero, nada real change agents moving in the profession. It, the public accounting profession, seems to me to be very much like what the American auto industry was like 60 (+ ) years ago. Many players dominated by a few large ones, but reasonably competitive amongst themselves and egocentric enough to believe that there was no way they would ever be realistically be challenged for market dominance. "We invented the assembly line for cryn' out loud." Yet slowly forces were afoot that would devastate the industry. The American auto industry ceased to meaningfully innovate at sometime in the late 1950's or early 1960's. They failed to listen to the creator of JIT manufacturing / supply chain theory, an American (Drucker). His impact was on the Japanese auto industry 20 - 30 years before the Americans started listening. They were forced to start using aluminum and materials other than steel by the U.S. Gov't (emissions standards). They are a full decade (at least) behind foreign auto makers in alternative fuel vehicles and are only beginning to move in that direction at government demand (emissions standards). Waiting for the government to regulate and dictate your innovation is a poor, at best, survival strategy.
What are the similarities in the accounting industry? The local / regional accounting firms have ceased to innovate at all. The basic processes, procedures, and output have not changed one iota since these firms put a PC on every desk (about 15 years ago). The local / regional firms are not following the lead of the innovators (the big 4) and are in no position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves when the large firms falter. The local / regional firms rely on a complex government regulatory environment to preserve their market. That in and of itself is an incredibly vulnerable position. They notice not. There seems to be a lack of understanding as to what the basic nature of the business is - information vs. product delivery (tax returns / financial statements). Because of this lack of understanding, the profession as a whole is not adapting to the dramatically changing environment.
70% of individual tax filers can file their taxes for free - shrinking market. Most, if not all, small business owners have access to accounting software that can effectively produce their own financial documents accurately and timely. An entire service area is disappearing - write-up. None of the local / regional firms are staffed with people who can use the data they have about their business clients to sit down with them and reasonably produce and explain projections / forecasts for those business that would actually add value to their client relationship. The "old guard" is hoping that the business can survive until they retire. All the while, the core of their business is being hollowed out to the extent that they may have no value left when they want to sell.
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