I had lunch with my accountant in Basingstoke today and I was explaining how being in the tech industry, I am seeing a massive shift coming that I think many peers are not taking too seriously. It’s to do with the commoditisation of services.
He’s an accountant I thought, his business is run of the mill, much more stable and guess what… I was wrong, he’s not immune and in quite an obvious way.
For instance, where his company used to prepare accounts for businesses at the end of a year, from paper work and lengthy calculations, he now tends to get handed a disk with 95% of the work already done. So what has he got to offer that someone can’t do for themselves?
It’s all up here son!
Yep. His knowledge is where his value is. More than his knowledge in fact, because anyone can read a book. It’s more to do with his interpretation of the information and the creative ways he can think of applying knowledge. I know he’s good at it for two main reasons. The first is simple – the first four weeks of him becoming our accountant he got us a massive rebate from the VAT man. Our last accountant seemed to have missed that oversight.
More importantly for me though is his flexibility in knowledge sharing. He openly told me how he gets some great ideas from his hairdresser when he gets his hair cut. Remembering of course (and I do know the person he was talking about), his hairdresser is a business owner himself with similar challenges as well as business challenges that are completely different. Everyone is a source of inspiration.
Without doubt, many businesses will continue to fade away as regular services become eroded by technology. The focus needs to change – where is your money coming from in five years / ten years time?
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Hitting the nail on the head again! Good stuff. And really getting to grips with thesis.
You/your accountants may find this amusing… http://www.jackade.com/articles.html#CRS
