CPA Practice Advisor

FEB 2015

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

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34 February 2015 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com BRIDGING THE GAP By Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP 5 Technology Traps to Avoid At the same time, we must be on t h e l o o k o u t f o r s o m e c o m m o n st u mbl i ng poi nt s w a it i ng i n t he shadows to make us the next victim. In this month's column, I submit the top f ive tech nolog y t raps i n ou r profession to avoid. Follow the Herd Ofen, the safest and easiest route to take when mak ing tech- nolog y decisions is to w atc h w h at ou r peer s do a nd simply do the same thing. But how do we gain a competitive advantage through technology if we go where e v e r y o n e e l s e i s a l r e a d y? T h i s behavior is driven by the aversion of risk inherent to our profession as well as limited competition in the core applications. More and more CIOs that we work with are starting to believe it is time to look outside the profession and innovate. CPA Firms are Different There are certainly s o m e u n i q u e requirements in our profession with tax laws and other compliance regulations. At the same time there are a lot of things that we do as CPA frms that aren't all that diferent from other ty pes of busi- n e s s e s . L o o k a t t he s i g n i f i c a nt change that is occurring in health- c a r e a n d b a n k i n g . L o o k a t t h e tech nolog y t rend s f rom a g loba l perspective. At Boomer Consulting, we refer to this as "thinking about your thinking." Te problem, itself, is never the problem but how you think about the problem. Leading organizations are starting to think about what they would need to do if they were 10x larger. T is t y pe of thin k ing t y pica l ly creates excite- m e n t , c h a n g e , i n n o v a t i o n a n d exploration rather than look ing at one, two or three peers and simply following their lead. Focus on Maintenance Not Innovation W e ' v e a l l l i k e l y e x p e r ie nc e d s ome degree of change in technolog y in our organizations over the last few yea rs a nd it 's nat u ra l to w a nt to simply ta ke a brea k and let those modifcations take hold. However, when we start to think and act this way, we sta nd st i l l a nd beg in t he process of falling behind. If we only invest in the technologies that keep t h e l i g h t s o n , w e m i s s a h u g e o p p o r t u n i t y f o r c o n t i n u o u s improvement and innovation. W hile this approach might save money in the short-term, it's far more costly to play catch-up than to make ongoing i nvest ment s for t he f ut u re. A nd while this is true for most aspects of a bu s i ne s s , it i s e ven more pro - nounced in the area of technology. We are ahead of our peers and clients Related to the f irst two traps is the belief t h a t w e a r e t e c h n o l o g i c a l l y advanced compared to our clients and peers. Yes, we are more complex with fve times the applications and far fewer integrations than we typi- cally see with our clients. But that doesn't necessarily translate to our model being beter. Simplifcation is t he key to brea k i ng t h roug h t he ceiling of complexity and I submit that we could all learn a thing or two by look ing at t he way our cl ients leverage tech nolog y to r u n t hei r bu si nesses . We have a wea lt h of knowledge at our fngertips. Use it to your advantage. You don't know what you don't know It's easy to get over- conf ident when we feel like we have a strong grasp on ever y t h i ng we a l ready k now we should be focused on in technology. But it's what you don't k now you don't k now that costs you a lot of time and money. Tis is where being involved in a peer community can be extremely helpful. You will gain insight, fresh perspectives, research and development, bench ma rk ing and confdence that fast tracks your e duc at ion a bout t h i n g s you a re aware of and even those that you k n e w a b o u t p r e v i o u s l y. F i r m s cannot operate in a vacuum, and the value of trusted, veted peers to call o n f o r a d v i c e a n d g u i d a n c e i s priceless. Avoiding these fve traps requires diferent thinking than in the past, ofen forcing us outside our comfort zone and requiring us to take some risk. But as A lbert Einstein is widely credited as saying (despite no evi- dence he ever uttered the words), "Te defnition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but ex pecting dif ferent results." I encourage you to embrace change, and in turn, maintain your sanity. 3 4 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5 • w w w . C P A P r a c Jim Boomer is a shareholder and the CIO for Boomer Consulting , Inc. He is the director of the Boomer Technology Circles™ and an expert on managing technology within an accounting frm. He also serves as a strategic planning and technology consultant and frm adviser in the areas of performance and risk management. In addition, Jim is leading a new program, Te Producer Circle, in collaboration with CPA2BIZ and the AICPA. jim.boomer@cpapracticeadvisor.com I n the rapidly changing world of technology it can be hard to keep up. For this very reason we ofen look for shortcuts to keep us from falling behind the competition. It's not that we don't want to research ever y detail about ever y solution we are considering, it's a mater of time. Whether it is joining a peer community or calling in a 3 rd party expert, we all need help. And I'm a big supporter of streamlining the informa- tion gathering and decision making process. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO EMBRACE CHANGE, AND IN TURN, MAINTAIN YOUR SANITY.

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