Friday High Five – the news this week

The global IT outage hit TheBusinessDesk.com this morning.

It makes you realise how vulnerable we are and how dependent on fragile but critical infrastructure we have become.

Ten years ago I worked on a year-long project for the accountancy industry’s professional body, the ICAEW, called Tomorrow’s Practice.

I was tasked with asking practice owners and partners how they saw the future.

The research was supported by Intuit, the company behind QuickBooks, so clearly technology was in the forefront of all of the conversations at that time.

I started from the premise that accountants were trusted, even if they were considered a bit dull. 

The days of the local high street bank manager offering friendly advice to a small business was long gone. Lawyers tend not to have a more transactional relationship, and therefore one without the recurring fees of tax, audit and accounts preparation.

I was also curious about the lowering of barriers to entry and the need to protect business owners from unregulated and unlicensed amateurs offering snake oil solutions to complex problems, especially around tax.

Overall, the team I worked with reached three main conclusions – cherish the trust, embrace the tech, and look to enhance the service offer.

It is amazing to think now that the central investment thesis behind the consolidators is entirely based on those pillars.

As the balance of our news shows this week, and in other weeks, we are seeing the biggest change in how services to businesses are delivered. It’s important that in the midst of it all that the profession doesn’t lose sight of the integrity and trust element.

As we know technology can fail, but it gets back up again. Trust can take a lot longer to recover.