Stop Turning Wrenches, Turn Up Value
How will you show your value to your firm as an IT person?
Keeping the servers going? Making sure the backups are working? How about making sure you are legal on licensing?
All of these things are important but are they valued or commoditized? We both know the answer to this but unfortunately, it’s those things that take up most of your time.
How about engaging various technology vendors to save 8% on your IT budget? What about rolling out a learning management system to better facilitate training and CPE tracking? What about connecting siloed data via APIs or figuring out a better way to get reports out of your practice system?
You get where I am going. If you want to mess with the ‘blinky light’ stuff you should not be working for a CPA firm. You should be working for an IT firm. If you care about improving processes, saving/making money, and ensuring your team (“users”) are savvy…then you need to get rid of the stuff that doesn’t add value for you or the firm. You could hire an extra team member to free yourself up, but you and I know that won’t work and it likely means you now have to manage a person and get into the staffing game.
This is why the cloud is relevant – not because it’s a threat to your job. Because it is either:
Keeping the servers going? Making sure the backups are working? How about making sure you are legal on licensing?
All of these things are important but are they valued or commoditized? We both know the answer to this but unfortunately, it’s those things that take up most of your time.
How about engaging various technology vendors to save 8% on your IT budget? What about rolling out a learning management system to better facilitate training and CPE tracking? What about connecting siloed data via APIs or figuring out a better way to get reports out of your practice system?
You get where I am going. If you want to mess with the ‘blinky light’ stuff you should not be working for a CPA firm. You should be working for an IT firm. If you care about improving processes, saving/making money, and ensuring your team (“users”) are savvy…then you need to get rid of the stuff that doesn’t add value for you or the firm. You could hire an extra team member to free yourself up, but you and I know that won’t work and it likely means you now have to manage a person and get into the staffing game.
This is why the cloud is relevant – not because it’s a threat to your job. Because it is either:
A) a career path: go work for an IT company with a cloud play, or B) it’s your ticket to show the value only you can show.
Your call!
Read more from Roy Keely on Xcentric's blog.