Category: risk management

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Disruptive Trends = Emerging Opportunity: Adapting to a changing technology and business environment

Every new day brings some new advancement in business technology, and much of this advancement relates to cloud computing, mobility, and new social computing models.  Information technology and solutions applied to business use have rapidly evolved away from paper-based or fixed-location tools, and are now oriented towards enabling mobility and anytime, anywhere access to business applications and digital data.

Trends driving change in business technology today may be reflected in two main areas: enabling solutions which are revealing benefit not previously recognized, and disruptive approaches which represent trans-formative changes to how businesses operate.   Disruption and transformation often generate new business opportunity, yet many professionals in accounting/finance and information technology fail to see the new potential available and resist anything which represents significant change.  These professionals equate change with risk, and are reluctant to entertain either.

An example of a class of solutions which enable the organization to “know more”, providing decision support through deep analysis and reporting of key business data, is the new generation of data visualization tools now available in forms and formats easily accessible by any business professional.  Previously, business owners had to rely on system analysts and accounting professionals to compile and report on various aspects of business activity.  Using spreadsheets and database driven chart-building systems, manipulation of large volumes of data was unwieldy and limited by available computer resources.  Moving beyond previously recognized boundaries in data collection and aggregation, tools now available assist users in combining data from disparate sources, and offer a rich suite of analytics coupled with the simplicity of drag-and-drop selection and exploration.

The opportunity introduced with this new capability does not rest solely in the analysis of the data.  Rather, it is in the control and the structure which must be developed to ensure that all relevant data being collected, and in the structure and control placed on those data collection and integration processes which will ensure that the information is properly associated or correlated, and accurately integrated into the model.   Completeness and accuracy of data is of critical importance, as is an in-depth understanding of the nuances of structured and unstructured data relationships.

In addition to the enabling solutions emerging on the market which are driving deep changes in how businesses see themselves are the advancements in technology which cause fundamental shifts in how business use technology to support operations.  The most evident advancement, often viewed as an approach which is disruptive to more traditional models, is the emergence of “cloud” computing models.  Cloud computing, connected services, and fully-managed outsourced IT solutions address a number of issues which have burdened enterprise IT deployments since IT departments were invented.

The difficulty for IT managers is that they are often overworked and underfunded, as information technology is not often viewed as a strategic differentiator but merely as a necessary cost of supporting operations.  Users view IT as being unresponsive and ineffective, and have little understanding of the balancing act required to meet user demands and at the same time deliver standardized enterprise computing services in a secure manner.

Mobility and the cloud has changed the landscape of business IT, and the concept of “there’s an app for that” is now fully ingrained in the user mentality.  Cloud solutions, sometimes introduced to the business by non-IT personnel and often viewed as “rogue IT” projects, have won adoption by business users due in large part to the simplicity of implementation, and often because they can deploy the solution quickly, outside of the boundaries established by internal IT management.  Information management within the organization must necessarily extend now to mobile computing devices, where an entirely new set of issues is revealed in terms of personal device management and distribution of corporate data and intelligence.  Professionals assisting the business with information management, access, collection and integration processes must now give greater consideration to incorporation of mobile device and application management, as well as the risks introduced with the broad use of personal computing devices within the organization.

The cloud represents a convergence of social and mobile computing, and introduces an entirely new class of business metrics to measure due to the significant increase in available data captured at various levels and through various types of virtual interactions.  With users being able to engage wherever and whenever they choose (“there’s an app for that”, again), businesses must shift IT focus to strategic enablement, creating standards for outsourced deployments, and infusing each effort with the security and control required, which is a mainstay of IT operations.

Big data, visualization and analysis, and mobile and social computing are changing how we do business.  As the trusted advisor to the business, the accounting professional should embrace these changes and the opportunities they present to deliver more value and service in each client engagement.  Accountants can help their clients understand how to do more with less – leveraging technology to improve operational efficiencies, and to structure, capture, integrate and analyze the relevant data which will reveal the risks and potentials of the operation under a variety of circumstances.

Disruption creates your opportunity to bring order to the chaos, helping clients compete and flourish in a difficult economy, and providing the proactive guidance and analytical support necessary to build and sustain profitability.

Make Sense?

J

  • Read more about how accountants need business intelligence, too
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about the pressure on accountants to deliver more value and intelligence to their clients
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud
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Understanding the Customer Journey: Know More and Assign Proper Credit

Understanding the Customer Journey: Know More and Assign Proper Credit

There is a fascinating video of a presentation by Neil Hoyne (self-designated “student of the customer journey”, and Global Program Manager at Google) where he discusses customer attribution and how businesses should more closely measure, analyze and understand customer behavior to understand why some people do or don’t click, buy, or come back for more.  While the conversation focuses on website performance and link tracking, the underlying message applies to all aspects of business relationship development.  In short, it doesn’t usually take just one thing to compel someone to do something.

Neil’s session “encouraged companies to identify more actionable performance metrics and build stronger industry relationships as the advertising market continues its rapid evolution away from last-click valuation.”  In concept, it means that there are many interactions that may occur before someone makes that decision to actually click or buy.   They likely received impressions from various sources (ads, word of mouth mentions, etc.), or performed searches or perused various discussion or information sources at some point before that final “click”.  So, why is that “last click” considered to be most valuable?

If you compare online sales and marketing to people-based sales and marketing activity, you’ll find that users will follow similar paths and interact in similar manners with both mediums.  This is due to the fact that, as Neil puts it, “every customer has a story”, and each is taking their own individual journey.   The path they follow is as individual as the person, but there are ways to identify trends based on how users interact with the business if the data can be appropriately captured and analyzed.

If we turn the conversation to customer management, similar truths are revealed.  For example, in many businesses sales success is attributed solely to the sales team, and compensation plans support the belief that the front line is the essential source for new revenue.  However, the truth may be that the sale was made based on a personal referral from a satisfied customer or perhaps due to a discussion where the service and support was said to be exceptional, or even because the login portal is a pleasant shade of green instead of a dull grey.  Not giving appropriate credit to all of the factors which impact the sale presents a risk to the business, because changes in the approach may result with unintended negative consequences.  Remove the element which supports or encourages the action and you may lose the action, which is more likely to occur if the business doesn’t really understand why it happens in the first place.

For example, a business may decide that a direct sale approach is better than giving up revenue to affiliates or resellers.  However, the business may very well find that it takes the involvement of that affiliate or reseller in order to get the sale.  Pouring more money and resources into the direct sales force won’t make up the difference if the target customer isn’t connecting, or if the company isn’t offering the additional service or value-add delivered by the partners.  Also, if the sales organization is focusing exclusively on new business, where is the attention to current customers?

Businesses are spending tremendous resources in time, money and personnel to try to find ways to reach new customers and markets, yet often fail to fully understand what it took to get the existing customers on board.  Even worse, many businesses resist analysis of EXISTING customer behavior, not taking the time to understand how that customer interacts with and uses services provided, and failing further in identifying and delivering additional value to keep the customer satisfied and coming back for more. Many businesses only address existing users from a support standpoint, yet fail to explore ways to improve retention or up-sell revenues through front line sales efforts.  Again, it is the failure to understand when and why people take action that causes investment and effort to be misplaced, and desired results to not be achieved.

The whole point of this is that the business should KNOW MORE about the various ways users interact with them, and GIVE CREDIT to all of the elements involved in the chain.  If every user has a story, then the business should closely listen to those stories to learn how to increase reach and service delivery to customers of a similar theme (what the customer needs now), and to keep listening and learning in order to understand what the customer needs next.

Make sense?

J

Link to Neil’s presentation here: http://googleaffiliatenetwork-blog.blogspot.com/2012/08/accelerate-deeper-look-at-attribution.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GoogleAffiliateNetwork+%28Google+Affiliate+Network%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Is great customer service the entire customer experience?

You know those car commercials on TV, where the sales person is telling the customer about how great the warranty on the vehicle is?  Yeah – the one where the customer wants to know if they should buy a good car, or buy a car with a good warranty.  Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Read more about using the cloud to extend your access and collaboration beyond traditional boundaries.

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Knowing More: Accountants Delivering More Value with More Information

Knowing More: Accountants Delivering More Value with More Information

An article on CFO.com titled “What Does Sustainability Really Cost?” discusses the need for accounting and finance professionals to collect, analyze, and report on business data which is not always represented in the financial statements.  In many ways, this speaks to operational and other elements of the business, visible only with a closer look and through a deeper understanding of the operations and the many and varied factors which impact them.

Integrated financial reporting, which combines financial reporting with reporting of intangibles and other off-balance-sheet factors, needs CFOs’ support, investors say.
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1lWOa)

The focus of the article is one of sustainability and the ability of a business to maintain operations, profitability, and growth over time – and an integrated reporting approach which more fully describes this information, as well as elements relating to business risk and corporate governance.  In order for investors to fully understand the business health or the risk of investment in the operations, it takes looking beyond the balance sheet into operational metrics and detailed performance and supply chain data which is not often fully available in high level financial reports.

“..added material information will make investors a happier group. A more comprehensive approach to reporting would help investors more easily determine a firm’s ability to generate future cash flows, says Ian Ball, chief executive officer of the International Federation of Accountants and chair of the IIRC working group for integrated reporting. “Financial reporting on its own isn’t any longer telling us enough about a company to really understand its prospects,” he adds.

In recent years, about 80% of a company’s value was on the balance sheet, which contrasts to about 20% today, notes Ball. The reversal stems from the burgeoning presence of intangible assets among corporations. “If you’re trying to figure out whether a company’s worth investing in, you’ve got to understand the other 80% to understand the company,” he adds.
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1lWOa)

Deeper and more informative reporting on the business performance, as well as the data supporting the continued ability to perform at such levels and under what conditions, is what businesses owners need whether they recognize it or not.  Many business owners and managers believe they have the information necessary to make daily decisions, yet find their resources lacking when it comes to obtaining financing or meeting challenges posed by various unforeseen events.

Whether the economic environment is “friendly” or not, small businesses will turn to their banks to secure lines of credit and get funding to smooth out bumps in cash flow and availability.  Getting credit is always a challenge, even in the best of times.  When the economy stalls and times are tough, getting the necessary cash to support the business gets even tougher.

Bankable: Giving Small Businesses Credit http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-c1

Implementing dashboard analytics and other reporting tools is not always the initial answer, because part of the underlying problem may be that the right data is not being collected, or is not accurately accounted.  Developing a complete picture and providing an accurate and informed analysis of the data requires getting the right accurate data.  This is often where the process starts, ensuring that the systems in use benefit not only the work, but the information and reporting needs of the business as well.

When speaking to accounting professionals about the additional valuable services they could be providing to clients by using these KPI reporting tools to identify additional consultation and advisory services clients need, the feedback I generally get from the professional is that “you have to get the numbers right, first”.  It seems that, even with the ready availability of powerful and affordable software solutions to run the business, accounting and finance still tends to be an afterthought for many business owners.  Relegated to the back-office, and being an after-the-fact recipient of transactional data, accounting is still viewed by many as a “necessary evil” of doing business rather than an area of potential strategic advantage.

Working With the Right Numbers: Financial Data Analysis Requires Accurate Financial Data http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-9y

When the information systems in use appropriately support operational requirements of the business, the necessary data may be more easily collected for analysis. This is where accounting professionals should help their clients, to improve the quality of data available for analysis and for integration into financial systems.  It is through this attention to operational process support, getting the right tools in front of the user to support their job function and tasks, which will allow the collection of detailed information about the operations, and which ultimately provides the basis for a great deal of insight into the business.

It is in the interaction – of people, data and systems – where better technology-supported collaboration with the client should be established.  In many cases, this means focusing on improving the client system and the accounting process will benefit as a result.

Accounting Online and Outsourced Accounting – Focus on Enabling Your Client http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-bU

Accounting and finance professionals wondering how to increase their earning potential from the  existing portfolio of clients should look more closely at the operational and managements aspects of the businesses rather than focusing solely on tax return and financial statement preparation.   The value to the client is far greater and has a more direct impact when it helps in the performance of daily activities and provides support in overcoming challenges in cash availability, financing, and other issues business owners regularly face.  Know more about the client business, and the information you both gain provides the foundation to deliver greater service and tangible value.

Make Sense?

J

  • Read more about how accountants need business intelligence, too
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about the pressure on accountants to deliver more value and intelligence to their clients
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud
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The Holistic Approach to Cloud-Enabling Your Firm

The Holistic Approach to Cloud-Enabling Your Firm

Today’s professional accounting or law practice has a number of issues to contend with, not the least of which is technology.  While IT has been serving the firm for years, shifting paradigms in computing are leading professionals to wonder exactly which direction they should turn for advice.  It’s easy, at a high level, to see the value and benefit of outsourced IT services and being able to focus on your core offerings, but it’s a little harder to find exactly which path your firm should follow.  One thing has proven true over the past few years: taking a holistic approach to cloud-enabling your firm is far better than any uncoordinated exchange of applications and services.

There are four areas the firm should explore when looking to more fully leverage technology to its benefit, which is what “cloud-enabling” the practice really means:

  1. Transitioning to a paperless (or less paper) office
  2. Exploring alternative billing methods (value versus time?)
  3. Outsourcing non-core and non-strategic tasks and processes
  4. Streamlining procedures to create consistency in service levels

The challenge is that firms have numerous options and approaches being thrown about, none of which represent obvious solutions to the entire problem.  In pieces, cloud services and online applications can deliver new capability and functionality, but a professional practice has the requirement for systems to work together to be effective.  Re-entry or redundant storage of data is inefficient, so it is difficult to streamline procedures when the systems run on different platforms or don’t integrate well.

One approach is the “hybrid” approach, where you take the best of the tried and true, and deploy it in new ways to create new capabilities.  Also introducing cloud-based and SaaS solutions where they can truly help the firm innovate makes sense, as long as those solutions can connect back to the core systems. The key is to not lose what efficiency and business intelligence the firm already has while attempting to transform and improve upon those models (digital transformation).

The new thinking by some firms is to adopt web-based practice management solutions that make it easier to collaborate with team  members and clients.  Many of these solutions get great reviews and indeed do make it easier for users to access information from anywhere and on mobile devices.  Lots of neat features for the forward-thinking practice are available, yet the problem is that these solutions usually don’t have general accounting functionality required by the business, nor do they address some of the fundamental capabilities that apps on the desktop can.

For the online applications serving line-of-business functionality, the easy answer to finance department questions is to connect to an online accounting solution, like QuickBooks Online.  While this may serve the needs of the developer, the needs of the business finance department often outpace the functionality available in the smb online accounting products.  To address this reality, many developers have created the means to export data to the QuickBooks software running on the local desktop.

The desktop editions of QuickBooks remain extremely popular with professional service firms and the businesses they serve. In a cloud and mobile world, the firm and their client doesn’t have to be tied to the local desktop in order to keep their desktop software or collaboratively work in the data.  When the QuickBooks desktop software is setup within a secure remote access environment (whether on-premises or with a hosting provider), users benefit from the same mobility and realtime collaboration advantages as with a SaaS solution, like anytime/anywhere access.

Virtual desktops and remote application models allow users to access what seems like a workstation in the cloud, with business applications such as QuickBooks and Microsoft Office and whatever else the firm uses. The desktop is a true Windows platform, so the features and functionality are just as they are when working directly on a local PC.

Most remote or virtual desktop setups also let the user access the Internet and use a browser on the remote desktop, allowing users to run the SaaS solutions they’ve subscribed to alongside their desktop applications yet still remain in a totally virtual and mobile working environment. This approach allows the firm to centralize management and administration of internal servers and networking resources, or eliminate much of the maintenance and management by outsourcing to a hosting provider. Outsourcing the hosting and management of systems further establishes predictability in cost and increases IT agility.

The thing to remember is that one size does not fit all, and every firm will need to work within their own requirements and motivations to come up with the proper approach.  What works for a solo practitioner or small firm won’t necessarily work for a larger firm… or maybe it will, depending on the company culture and structure. There are a lot of options with the cloud when it comes to outsourced information technology models, online practice management and other business solutions, and mobile services which reduce the impacts of time and distance.  It’s time to start implementing on-demand access and mobile-friendly service options before the competition leaves you behind.  Interestingly enough… the competition that looks like a huge and successful firm could be just one person using some really smart IT.

 

Make sense?

J

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Compliance in the Cloud – Their System; Your Responsibility

Can you outsource compliance to the cloud?

Outsourcing IT to a cloud service provider can be tremendously beneficial for a business.  The model allows an organization to offload not just IT infrastructure costs, but also the costs associated with developing and maintaining all of the practices and processes involved in managing and maintaining the infrastructure and systems.   There is tremendous responsibility in handling everything from platforms and infrastructure to creating best practices for maintenance, management of scalability and growth, forecasting bandwidth requirements, implementing and monitoring security compliance, creating effective and comprehensive disaster recovery plans, and more.

The question which begs to be asked is whether or not HIPAA, PCI/DSS or any other compliance requirements, and the complexities, risk and legalities that come along with them, can also be outsourced to the CSP. For that matter, can any real level of responsibility be fully outsourced, where the liability for non-performance or noncompliance is also fully shifted?

Ummm. No. It is still your problem.

What too many companies really don’t understand is that they aren’t eliminating risk by moving to the cloud, and the requirement to meet various compliance requirements really can’t be outsourced. Particularly in this area, businesses need to recognize that outsourcing certain functions doesn’t reduce or eliminate responsibility or liability.  Just the converse, it could make things a bit more difficult if you don’t keep close tabs on how the provider implements and is involved with your solution. Even beyond that, what is the impact to the business operation when requirements are not met?  Cost recovery from the provider may be one option, but how does that help the business remain operating in the meantime?

“Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act  Requires financial organizations to enter into contracts with third parties that they share their customer information with (including cloud vendors) to ensure that the third-party handles that information securely. Executives of those financial organizations can be held personally liable for failure to do so.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)  Defines specific security mandates and requirements for financial reporting to protect shareholders and the public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices. SOX dictates which records are to be stored and for how long and requires the data owner to know the location of the data in the cloud and to maintain control of it. Failure to comply can result in fines and/or imprisonment.”

source: CIO.com

This discussion Isn’t limited just to compliance with regulations (at least it shouldn’t be)

In this conversation we need to also address what a business should do in terms of protecting and preserving its information assets (data!) even beyond what the CSP offers. Keeping confidential and private information secure and protecting the data of the business (and clients or patients or other entities) is essential, even when the CSP fails in its obligations or abilities.  This aspect of disaster recovery and continuity planning is not often considered by the CSP yet remains critical to the business customer. The sales pitch, however, never really delves into this area, because it represents an aspect of service coverage that the provider simply can’t provide.

Illustrating this particularly difficult aspect of outsourcing to the cloud is the hard lesson learned by customers of a QuickBooks hosting provider who experienced a severe outage due to a ransomware attack. The hosting service provider promised customers it backed up their data and it did, but the backup archives were also compromised.  In order to restore service, customers were expected to have their own backups of the cloud-hosted data.

While there may have been items in the service agreement which address these issues, I can say – based on a great deal of experience in just this area – the service providers rarely make this point very clear to customers, and more frequently tell customers backing up their data is no longer something they need to really worry about. It’s like that really tiny type at the bottom of a contract that nobody notices until it is too late.

“..restoration proved more difficult in Texas. Lezama explained that for the Texas clients, the backups had been compromised as well, because their backup data had synchronized with corrupt files. But Cloudnine clients are obligated backup their own data as well, as a sort of third-level security measure..”

source: AccountingToday

With compliance in the cloud, it’s their system, but your responsibility.

Outsourcing IT to a cloud service provider in no way eliminates or reduces the obligations of the business to manage certain aspects of information systems and data.  What outsourcing can do is deliver a greater operational capacity and agility more affordably.

The responsibilities to establish information and systems management practices and processes remain firmly with the business, and actually represent a strategic component of the business that is unwise to outsource anyway. Resilience in a business and its ability to conform to regulatory and other requirements are the foundations of sustainability. Remember that cloud providers and services can be leveraged to improve certain cost and system performance metrics, but it remains solely with the business customer to find ways to reduce risk and create a greater assurance of continued operational capability.

Make Sense?

J

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In Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Information Technology: The Value of Outsourcing

The Value of Outsourcing

The small-business market, unlike the mid- and enterprise markets, utilize the general services of public accountants in much greater volume and typically for more fundamental business services – such as business bookkeeping and daily process support. Larger organizations typically employ accounting and bookkeeping departments and/or in-house personnel, and rely on outside accounting professionals for higher-level work. Small businesses, on the other hand, want to hand off much more of the core bookkeeping and checkbook management functions to their public accountant. This creates a volume of fairly mechanical work which can be burdensome and not terribly profitable for many CPA firms. But this level of work is of significant value to the small business owner, and thus the value of outsourcing to the accounting professional should be clear.

CPA firms started to step away from bookkeeping activities (this is in the 1980’s or so), reserving their time for compliance, audits, and other engagements referred to as the “higher level work”.  As business accounting became more complex (largely due to advances in information management technologies as well as accounting and tax regulations, which generated a LOT more detailed information to “account” for), many professional firms saw a need to focus on their core offerings, and not on the lower level bookkeeping and record keeping activities.  As a result, the emerging cottage industry of bookkeeping service providers grew in power and numbers, and came to represent a critical intermediary between the CPA and the small business owner.  Truly, bookkeepers and software consultants are often the folks who help to automate the processes, capture the information, and organize the data so that it is useful to the accountant.

The issue that revealed itself was that small businesses started to pay more attention to the technology and business solution advice and direction of their bookkeepers and consultants than the advice of the CPA.  In a lot of cases, the CPA kept an arm’s length from the business, concerning themselves with their tasks, and not paying significant attention to how the data is collected or controlled.  As long as they got the data, that was OK.  As the reality started to set in, that bookkeeping and information management consulting also delivered the “higher level” accounting work, CPAs once again sought a means to gain more direct participation in the client business… but through a somewhat less direct manner than previous.  Now, partnering was revealing itself as the means to more fully engage the business, and the bookkeeper or consultant, in the overall accounting value chain, resulting with the delivery of work as well as value back to the accounting professional.

The enabler of this value chain, where the accounting professional, the bookkeeper, and the business owner can all work in concert without limitations in systems or based on location, is the cloud.  Providing standardization in terms of data platforms and integration, offering mobility and device independence, and combining resource management and access into a comprehensive approach to solving business problems is enabled through cloud technologies and connected solutions and services.

For many, this concept of fully technology-enabled business seems frightening, like a loss of control or individual accountability.  But it’s important to recognize that, as things become more complex, the opportunity for specialists is always created.  In the ever changing world of technology, it’s a dangerous approach to believe that you can be all things to all people, just as in accounting or tax.  You can’t be a specialist in every area, so you specialize in your niche, do it better than anyone else, and outsource/partner to get the rest done.  This is a philosophy of the cloud, and it’s working.

The true value of outsourcing, whether it is a small business outsourcing their bookkeeping and accounting to a public accountant, an accounting professional outsourcing bookkeeping work to a bookkeeping provider/partner, or those businesses outsourcing information technology management to cloud solution providers, the end-result can include improved focus on the core business, greater agility in embracing and adjusting to new strategies, improved quality of information through attention to process and control, and a much higher level of value delivered to all participants in the value chain.

Make Sense?

J