There is an interesting article in Accounting Today – Will You Innovate or Evaporate?.    The gist of the article is that services firms (particularly referring to accounting firms, of course, but I think this applies more broadly) ought to lift their heads from their practices from time to time to see what is out there – what different tools or techniques from other industries could be applied to a practice to make it better.  I am sure the author was thinking more broadly but here I’ll address how this applies to technology.

The point the author makes in this article is that you can innovate by making small changes and weaving them into the firm’s culture and DNA.  This makes absolute sense when talking about adding technology changes – why take on a huge implementation, upgrade or overhaul when a small change might make a big difference?  Or if you are making a big change, just make one, take your time, and make it right.  Take the time and, yes, spend the money, to make sure the implementation and roll out is smooth.

What are some examples of small changes?  You can start emailing invoices.  You can start scanning and filing documents online.

What are some larger innovations that, when done carefully, might have a big payoff?  You move from a local file server to cloud based storage (with the proper security level of course) so that your staff can access data from anywhere and from (almost) any device?   You could give your clients access to their files and information (including billing information) online.  Maybe they could even actually pay their bills and make appointments online.

What technology innovations has your business made lately?

  by  nyoin

What if…

• You have an IT services firm and, despite having a backup and recover plan, you have a major outage and a large number of your customers lose their websites?  Do you say “oh well, we recovered what we could” or do you say “we will make it right and rebuild those sites for you”?  How much would that cost?
• You own a restaurant and your connectivity to your credit card processor goes down and you have no backup method for taking cards.  Do you revert to “cash only”?  How much would that lost business cost?
• You are a professional photographer and you drop and break the external hard drive that houses all your photos for the past 5 years – including the ones from last nights wedding photo shoot?  What is the cost of this loss?
• You are a lawyer whose files are now ruined by the fire that broke out in the office next door and quickly spread through the building?  What is the cost of recovering (if you can) copies of what was in those files?
• You own a consulting firm and the day before your monthly billing run you lose the computer that had the billing records for the whole month.  How long before you can bill your clients correctly?