*Looking Ahead: Merging the Past into the Future
Source: CGMA Magazine
In this article, Neil Amato reviews a presentation by Daniel Burrus at a recent event hosted by the Maryland Association of CPAs. In the presentation, Burrus discussed the importance of merging the past with the present in order to be a successful accounting firm.
Burrus – an author, futurist, and consultant – offers the following insights for accountants:
- In light of rapidly changing technology, accountants must learn to think ahead, anticipating how they can best serve their clients.
- Looking ahead doesn't mean forgetting the past, but rather, integrating core skills with new ideas.
- A successful future will have a lot to do with your relationships. Successful relationships are built on trust. Trust is gained by operating with the “old school” values of honesty and integrity, and by delivering on promises.
- Consider whether your firm is learning and changing as quickly as your clients are.
- Learn to recognize “hard trends,” such as those relating to technology, and consider how they will affect your firm's future. For example, Burrus prefers not to work with an accounting firm that's still paper-based. He sees it as a lack of forward thinking.
- One way to be more anticipatory is to conduct a pre-mortem, an exercise in which you intentionally take time to consider how a proposed project or initiative might raise challenges after it's launched.
For the complete article, read “New ways of thinking are vital for accountants, but so are old-school values.”
From CGMA Magazine, May 5, 2015, http://www.cgma.org.