8 trends in the Accountant’s Software Industry

In August I posted this article (I’ve just updated the graphics slightly) signaling my intention to publish a series of blogs on the Accountant’s Software market. Across the preceding 12 months, I had undertaken two separate paid research projects on the state of this market and wanted to publish some of the key findings for the interest/benefit of others.

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How I Ate My Own Dog Food – Twice Over

Originally posted on: https://www.governright.com.au/

One of my favourite tech. industry sayings is “eat your own dog food” (aka “dog-fooding”). For those not familiar with it, Investopedia explains it as:

A colloquialism that describes a company using its own products or services for its internal operations…The basic premise behind “eating your own dog food” is that if a firm expects paying customers to use its products or services, it should expect no less from its own employees.

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Is Advisory really the future of accounting?

This article is an overview of my presentation at last week’s inaugural Accounting Business Expo: “Why Advisory won’t save you from technology”.

A Consensus View

Everywhere you look, it seems the world is telling accountants that compliance work is a non-growth future (at worst a dramatically diminishing business, brought to an end by government policy and technology). The answer, according to pretty much everyone, is operational advisory – helping clients with running better businesses. An entire industry has popped up to coach and help accountants “transition from compliance to advisory”. Technology has popped up everywhere, to systemise advisory, with report packs and standardised approaches for how you monetise the “enormous, under-serviced, advisory opportunity”.

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The countdown is on for MYOB

As part of the relisting of MYOB on the ASX, Bain Capital retained 57.7% majority shareholding with the following clause:

If the share price doesn’t increase by 20% in Mar 2016 (20 day Volume Weighted Average Price after the FY15 results are announced), Bain can’t sell down until Sept 2016 (after the announcement of the 1H16 results). At that point they can sell down completely if they choose.

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16 Predictions for 2016

Am I the only one to dream of what tagline I’d like below my name in my next TV appearance?

To-date, the best I’ve received from my 15 minutes of fame have been: “Matt Paff, Big Brother Applicant” and “Matt Paff, Carry Over Champion” (from a brief appearance on Burgo’s Catchphrase).

I’m not quite happy that this is how Australian TV will remember me, so I catch myself occasionally slipping into a jealous daydream whenever certain taglines appear below people’s names in the shows I am watching.
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Sage – The Waking Giant?

My Sage Preconceptions

Up until this point, my admittedly narrow assessment of Sage has been less than rosy. I saw them as a huge, reactive, disjointed company who thought they were in the acquisition and investment business rather than innovative technology space. I saw a company potentially headed the way of Kodak, from a major leader to irrelevance by not understanding what market they were in.
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Intuit #QBConnect 2015

Last week I was lucky enough to be in San Jose to attend Intuit’s second annual QuickBooks Connect. Only in America could you attend a technology conference headlined by Oprah, with the doyen of the accounting software industry, Scott Cook modestly chatting with THE guru of modern technology development Eric Ries, in one of 15 (yes fifteen) simultaneous stream sessions.

I thought I would sit down and share my takeaways and highlights from a very eye-opening event for me, before I head to #SleeterCon next week and learn some more.

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The 7 C’s

In May this year I was lucky enough to present at the Smithink Young Guns Conference on the Gold Coast. My topic, “Leading the firms’ to leverage cloud and new technologies”. In preparing the presentation into a structure that I hoped would be both impactful and memorable, I managed to codify my key points into what I call “The 7 C’s of Value Added services – the secret to en masse adoption of advisory”.

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Convergent Evolution

I’m by no means the first to compare changes in markets and business models with natural selection and the evolution of life. Many, including myself, particularly in recent times, have (perhaps over) quoted Charles Darwin to describe and motivate audiences to react to the technology driven, disruption upon us:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”

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