The Modern Business.......Part 3

Business & Industries evolve. Society evolves. This is a great thing.....so why are so many people afraid of it? Why are so many people so skeptical when it comes to businesses evolving? Why are so many people so slow to adopt to changes in technology?

All of these questions really puzzle me. After all if I asked a bunch of small business owners whether they thought the changes in medical technology & research were just a fad & were not really going to help I wonder how many would answer yes? So why do so many small business owners ( & big business for that matter) think technology is.....not for their Industry, just a fad, not going to help them etc? Do people generally believe that? Or is it just a fear of not knowing how to use that technology?

Now i'm not saying that every new invention or new piece of software or new thing is fantastic! But over the last 10 years some of these changes certainly have changed Industries. When I first started as an accountant clients would bring in a box full of *stuff*. Sometimes you got a ledger book! Other times just cheque butts, bank statements & sales books! Which meant that the majority of time spent was in coding the clients bank statements, preparing a manual bank reconciliation etc. The good old days! Fast forward a few years and most clients came in with a backup of their MYOB or QuickBooks file. Yes they had changed from a manual system to a computerised system. Because everything required manual data entry often times the file was *messy* so required some cleaning up. Fast forward again and we now have Cloud Based Software that downloads your bank statement data automatically and will even code your transactions automatically if you set up a few rules

So wind back 10 years and for most small business clients they would see their accountant once a year. Sometimes twice if they were lucky but generally once per year to review the business results. When MYOB etc became popular for some clients this moved to be quarterly. After all you had data that if entered all the time was up to date Today.....is a whole different story. With cloud automation accountants can have weekly contact with their clients. No longer do you wait till the end of the year to tell the client they have made a loss.....or that they have a huge tax bill.....or that they are in desperate need of some funding. Real time results = real time advice. I can tell clients they are behind in their billing budget each week. I can prepare management reports on a monthly basis a couple of days after the end of the month to let clients know what to work on to improve their business.

So if we look at the accounting industry in the last 10 years do you think this change in technology has changed the Industry? Do you think the accounting Industry has evolved?

Let's take a look at the Mechanic Industry. Do you think this Industry has changed over the last 10 years. With the introduction of more electronics in cars it sure has. The Corner workshop has had to introduce a lot more electronic machinery just to service the later model cars. The grease monkeys as they have been termed now need to understand a lot more about electronics to work on cars. The benchmark in the industry is changing. All because the technology in cars is changing.

So have a think about your Industry.........what has changed in the last 10 years? What has changed in the Industries around you in the last 10 years? How can you use these changes to improve your business? How are other businesses using these technology changes?

What's holding your business back from embracing the Modern Business concept?