Keeping Up With Technology
Source: CPA Trendlines
The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from a CPA Trendlines article.
The pace of change in technology is leaving accountants so dazed and confused that about half of all practitioners say merely “keeping up” is one of their biggest technology-related problems.
Accountants are so fed up with the staggering pace of developments that you couldn't pay them enough to try a new software product “while drinking umbrella drinks on a beach at vendor expense,” according to Randy Johnston and Leslie Garrett, writing in the new Accounting Firm Operations and Technology Survey. They caution, however, that “If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more.”
The survey reveals the top tactics accountants are employing to stay up-to-date and make informed decisions – starting with keeping close tabs on their colleagues and competitors.
How accountants prefer to learn about technology:
- Some 37 percent say one of their two favorite ways to learn about new technology is from their peers.
- About 30 percent prefer peer-to-peer interaction at industry events.
- About 26 percent like educational webinars.
- Almost 19 percent prefer searching the internet.
- Accounting industry websites, 16 percent.
- About 14 percent prefer hearing from tech consultants.
- 13 percent from industry publications.
- 12 percent from a vendor's demo.
- Email marketing, 8 percent.
10 and 11 (tie). Vendor websites and friends, each about 7 percent.
Almost all firms agree on at least one thing: They all disdain telemarketing and mailers or postcards.
For the original article, read “Survey: How Accountants Keep Up with Tech Trends.”
From CPA Trendlines, July 23, 2014, cpatrendlines.com.