AccMan Pro (now moved to www.accmanpro.com)

SAP wants your business

SAP is the giant of the enterprise applications world but it has failed to make headway in the SME market. Yet again though, it is making a strong marketing play to capture your hearts and minds. If you've not seen it, then I recommend  looking at SAP's white paper Moving Beyond Accountancy.

 

The paper points up the need to move away from non-compliance work and throws out some interesting statistics:

SMEs are often disappointed by their investments in   business software. the most common reasons why business software failed to   deliver were: 

• failure to change internal processes -     56%   
• poor or inadequate implementation approaches -     33%   
• lack of training - 25%   
• benefits not adequately assessed in the first     place - 14%

Source: Revving up for the new regs, PMP Research,   2005

Naturally, SAP pours praise on professionals as being in the ideal place to offer practical advice. And as usual, the spinmeisters at SAP have done a compelling job in surrounding you with fuzzy warm words.

 

I have to give them credit for thinking about the overall process angle as a differentiator as opposed to punting pure accounting functionality. But the fact remains that SAP solutions for SMEs have not proven attractive. Whether that is the way they've been pitched, the complexity and relative inflexibility of the software or whether SAP just hasn't got the bodies in place that truly understand this market is a mystery.

 

Nevertheless, if you have clients that need process beyond accounting functionality, then you could do worse than to listen to the SAP pitch. Just be sure you've got your BS detectors on full alert. SAP is very, very good at sales execution. Much of that centres on your believing you're a member of an exclusive club. It works at the enterprise level. I'm not so sure that SMEs will be enamoured.

 

Technorati Tags : SAP+accountants, practice+development

Is this working?

Readers have asked me whether this site is bringing in any revenue. I reckon they're secretly trying to pick what's left of my brains to figure out whether the risks associated with using blog tools and the blog 'style' of communications is worth the effort. 

 

Yes. Despite taking time out to go trolling up and down Spain and France to fetch furniture (that was an economic decision) - readers kept coming to the site. That's good news because in this environment, keeping content fresh is as important as the content itself. The fact that a 9-10 day gap didn't kill AccMan off is a comfort.

 

In terms of deals, I've been commissioned to create a bunch of material aimed at role-based individuals that need solutions to specific challenges. In addition, I've been asked to produce a complementary series of podcasts to go with the material. I didn't 'sell' that service - it sold itself. The overall deal value runs into five figures (without the .00 on the end wise guys).

 

One of my long standing clients is extending the range of content I help produce for use across multiple markets and in multiple geographies. We are toying with the idea of turning some of this into 'bloggaable' material that can be used globally as an adjunct to their main site activities and may extend to multiple languages.

 

Another client has commissioned a series of case studies (10) that seeks to inject 'real world' experience' instead of PR fluff. These cases range from household names like Sony to others I won't bother mentioning as they're either US or Europe specific.  

 

Elsewhere, a number of practices raise questions over email or by phone (yes you can call me but please arrange in advance) that may lead to advisory services but which I happily answer free of charge. I don't 'sell' services in the conventional sense. Rather I try and enable folk to do it for themselves, explaining the ups and downs of doing this stuff.

 

Some people ask why I do so much for free. Dead easy. I can make a decent living through content creation and I'm not in this to be a mega-uber-blogerati though it would be nice to think there will come a day when I don't have to be at the keyboard at midnight.

 

Second, I really would like to see the smaller practice (which is my heritage) make a new and positve impact in the communities it serves. I believe we're at the cusp of something that's both exciting and disruptive. The time is right for the smaller practice, even with the difficulties of fee pressure, to become dynamic in ways that capitalise on the many years' industry specific experience built up but as yet untapped inside many many practices. This is completely different to the functionally led audit and tax approach.

 

Is it working for the firms who read this stuff? You're the best judges. But, as one example, my comments about Stuart Jones and his passion for business have apparently got Stuart thinking about how he expresses that passion. I won't take plaudits for that because at the end of the day, change is always an individual choice. I'd prefer to believe that what I say encourages others to think differently.

 

Technorati Tags : new_business_models, new_media

 

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Creative accounting

Usually, I find Dave Winer to be a bit of a pratt. But then some people say the same about me. Yesterday I read this observation from said Winer:

"In 1996, I wrote : "Here's an invitation to truly embrace the creativity of others. Instead of beating your breast about how great you are, try saying how great someone else is. Look for win-wins, make that your new religion. Establish a policy that nothing will be announced unless it can be shown that someone else will win because of what you're doing. How much happier we would be if instead of crippling each other with fear, we competed to empower each others' creativity."

Now, in 2005, almost ten years later, we may be grown-up enough to actually work this way."

 

This coming from a software person with donkey's years' experience would have definitely been seen as laughable in 1996. Now it is reality. And if you want to know what the fuss is about then here's a good summation .

How might this idea be applied to the business of building a creative accounting practice? Is it doable? Are 'we' so afraid of the guy down the street we have no idea whether we could offer something complementary? You could of course always enter into an unholy alliance with your bank manager...

 

Technorati Tags : marketing, practice_management, practice_development, new_business_models

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New value thinking

I've recently started to read Tom Peters. He's the guy who's taken Drucker econo-marketing to a new level and who gets people out of their comfort zone. The text from one of his slides given at a presentation delivered in Sydney, June 2005 says:

“Value innovation is about making the competition irrelevant by creating uncontested market space. We argue that beating the competition within the confines of the existing industry is not the way to create profitable growth.” —Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (INSEAD), from Blue Ocean Strategy (The Times/London

My next thought on reading this was: 'Hmm, I've operated that way for years.' So while I was smugly congratulating myself on having discovered something before the great man I then read this text from the same slide deck:

First Sea Lord John Fisher (1841-1920):

Do right and damn the odds - this is one of the principles on which Google is founded
Stagnation is the curse of life - GE had this problem in the 1970s, until Jack Welch turned up
The best is the cheapest - open source software (OSS) is being gobbled up at a rate that far outstrips anything being 'sold' today
Emotion can sway the world - Walter Kronkite announcing Kennedy's death
Mad things come off - Free software sounds like the dumbest idea in the world. It's not. See Google
Haste in all things - The current crop of web-based applications are released on a 3-month or less cycle. If you're lucky, you'll get an annual upgrade to your Windows apps
Any fool can obey orders - No comment!
History is a record of exploded ideas - Dotcom mania
Life is phrases - Global conversations are springing up everywhere on every topic under the sun...and then some. That's what this site is about.

Source: Jan Morris, Fisher’s Face, Or, Getting to Know the Admiral

I look very silly with a crimson face.

The Kick-Ass Curve

Sometimes I come across great graphics that make the point far better than I ever could. I blagged this one from Creating Passionate Users. It describes the curve people go through with new products and services starting from the point where 'it sucks'  to the point where people become passionate.

It follows that a good service, product, tool or whatever beats out a bad one because the time to creativity - the point where people do something useful they find meaningful - is shortened. I agree.

The unsaid good news. The resistance curve is almost always shallower for those that become passionate more quickly. Art imitating life perhaps? Either way, it's a great way to explain the power of new media and the value it can bring to your professional client relationships. If you agree, feel free to snag the image in your presentations, but please credit to Creating Passionate Users. They'll appreciate it.

Tax planning game over by 2008?

Accountancy Age reports on an interview with HMRCs head honcho Dave Hatrnett during which he says that by 2008:

"We will have made tax avoidance not worthwhile"

In the wake of recent high profile wins, HMRC plans pursuing 'Debenham' style VAT cases, will look to see how far it can make Dextra stick while pursuing the notion that tax avoidance is illegal. That explains a number of things I've been hearing recently about alleged high-handed treatment by HMRC flunkies.

It's ambitious but not beyond the realms of possibility. So let's take our Dave at his word. A revenue stream has just been guillotined. If you have a practice based on tax planning you could have to think about alternatives.

The modern practice is no longer about the annual accounts and tax bill. Those are rapidly becoming commodity services. In just the same way as the computer programs used to deliver the results. The world's moved on. It seems to me that for professionals to succeed, they need to do two things:

• Research what clients need and want
• Execute to deliver a differentiated service

There's only one way the first happens and you can guess what I'm going to say - conversations. The second follows but you still need to keep clients in the conversational loop. That's it!

I can't do it

One of the things I hear all too often is: "It's all right for you, you can write, I'm an accountant." I was where you are one day and then I went to Accountants Anonymous and....I digress. Take heart. Two things:

See this from Michel-Edouard Leclerc. It doesn't matter if you can't read French. He runs E.Leclerc, one of the largest hypermarket chains in France. Yet he finds time to update his site almost daily. How? He's organised and disciplined. Ok - he was used to keeping journals. But we do that all the time. It's called time sheet filling - whether paper or electronic.

What about the writing side? The key here is to understand the kind of message you want to get across. My friend David Tebbutt runs training courses on this kind of stuff. On his website, I'd look at items 1,7,3,4,5,2 in that order.

Although his website refers to 'press' David has trained all manner of organisations. He, will help you focus on what you're trying to achieve, show you techniques for dealing with complex issues. If you wish and feel brave, he will also show you how to handle hacks - I mean journalists.

I haven't got time

The next most common question I hear is "I haven't got time." Nonsense. Organised correctly with non-chargeable junior staff doing research legwork, you can have a post ready to roll in 20 minutes. You don't have to post every day though there may be occasions where you'd prefer to make additional updates.

But what if your site attracted an additional client per month and an additional amount of fee work from on existing client per month. Would that be worth your while? Or is that an exaggeration of the likely effectiveness of your site? Given what many say is virtually no traffic and little value on offer, anything coming through the door as a result of your website has got to be a bonus.

What if the posting sparked a conversation with a client that added to the store of your existing market knowledge? Wouldn't you want to know about that? Wouldn't you want to have that information tucked away for future reference.

At the end of the day, accountants are the archetypal knowledge workers. Legislation changes regularly. Bureaucracy seems to be never ending.  You have to keep up to date or you die. So what's wrong  with keeping up to date in a positive manner? One that has the potential to add considerable value to your practice both internally and externally?

Website guidance - small business

A double doner kebab and salad reader asked me if there's a good guide about website basics for small businesses. There is one at eStrategyOne but whether I'd pay $14.95 for the pleasure, sight unseen is another matter. If enough people ask, then I'll cough up and review for readers.

The reader was asking the question from a business rather than geek perspective. I'd say a website is like a business card. You need one, it ain't up for discussion. The problem comes in creating the content. I've said before that the biggest issue I see for professionals is the static nature of their sites and the fact many look remarkably similar. There's no differentiation. So the issue isn't should I have one but what will I put in there?

The simple answer is the most obvious - write about things with which you are familiar and with which you feel comfortable. If that's about different types of incontinence pads for the elderly or managing the fox population post-the fox hunting ban then great - especially if what you say imparts a piece of knowledge you believe has value to others in your community of interest.

If you have a talent for expressing yourself cogently and succinctly, even better. If not then maybe you need help (I do this stuff all day long.) BTW - if you did a degree then you already know about writing less is more.

As far as the tools are concerned, I'd recommend taking a serious look at TypePad from SixApart. That's what this  site uses. It's almost a no-brainer, can be configured and customised very quickly and is available on a free trial for 30 days. Again, if readers want help with this, yours truly is willing to lend a hand.

Disclosure: I have no commercial ties with SixApart though I know some of their people quite well. How's that for transparency?

Website critique

I hesitate about this post as some may take it the wrong way. So if you're of a nervous disposition or suddenly see red, then please, post a comment. Get it off your chest.

In my news aggregator I have a subscription to Accountants Pick. Most of it is rubbish and thank goodness it renders better in FeedDemon than on the original site. One thing caught my eye. This article about care home operator problems from Business Gazette. Why? because I used to have a client in that sector and my daughter works in a private care home.

The words came from Dodd & Co. So I visited their website. Guess what? It's a website with no immediately obvious contact form. It has a survey that I can't understand and one question that's virtually incomprehensible.

I did find an interesting tax bulletin about hotelier's staff accommodation but to find it you have to go the press section?? It is (almost) written in plain English so the average person should get the gist. Elsewhere, the firm shows off its expertise in farming and other, localised industries.

The report that was referred to isn't on the site - or at least I can't see it. I did find a bulletin about the care industry. But it is so 'packed' I struggled to get through it. It's also detail heavy and there is an assumption that business owners will want to wade through facts and figures. Wrong!

I have no doubt that Dodd & Co are a great firm. They've grown from 3 to 100 in 25 years so they're doing a lot of things right. They have clear expertise in a number of areas and, if you're technically inclined, they clearly have strong depth. In other words, from reading their stuff, I as a professional got a great deal out of it. But...

I didn't see anything that appealed to me as a prospective customer. I don't know anything about the individuals, I have no real idea who's got which expertise, unless I am prepared to trawl the site - which I'm not. There is no client testimonial section. There is no personal message from the senior partner. In other words, they're voiceless. There is no conversation.

I wanted to hear from customers Dodds have advised on the care home regime. I wanted to hear how Dodd has worked to help its customers and the benefits they expect to see. How I wish I could get that out of their site. But I can't. Would they be on my shortlist if I was selecting a firm for my business? Maybe.

But top of the list of my questions would not be: "What is your expertise in...?" but "How do you plan on maintaining communications with me?" If they say anything other than 'electronic' then I know my fees are inflated by the amount of time, effort and physical cost involved in sending letters.

Isn't it about time professionals ate the dog food being fed by HMRC by which I mean a requirement to file online by 2009? Isn't it about time professionals took the opportunity to engage with customers? In time, I believe that customers will measure the profession as much by the way it conducts its relationships as it does for its technical expertise. It will be those firms that understand this issue that will truly thrive.

For the sake of fairness, I have forwarded an email containing this post to the person who was mentioned in the article.