Why Tech Adoption Should Matter to Your Firm

Technology is everywhere and it’s being adopted at rapid rates. Most likely, your clients are using the latest technology. Being informed and “in-the-know” could be important to retaining and acquiring clients, whether they’ve said so or not.

According to a chart from “Our World Data” it took 100 years for the first telephone to be fully adopted in society. However, that same chart shows a similar household technology – the smartphone – taking less than a decade for usage to surpass 77 percent of households. In fact, the technology, in some ways, hasn’t changed. What has changed? Why does the adoption rate seem so much faster?

Sometimes it seems like technology is progressing at a rate far faster than imaginable and keeping up is difficult. Interestingly, your clients are keeping up. Whether it is the newest Apple iPhone or Google Home, they own the device themselves or know many who have these technologies already. You may also use these technologies that make your personal life easier to manage. Your clients in many cases also move quickly to adopt new technology in their businesses in order to stay competitive. However, this wasn’t the case just a century ago. Adoption rates for some new technologies are significantly faster in the modern day than back in the early 1900s. This is due to two main factors.

1. Consumer changes:

Clients’ expectations and attitudes have changed drastically. Today, they are connected at all times with instant communication and they are trying to reach customers and prospects for their stores, restaurants and manufacturing firms whenever an opportunity arises. Things like new product information, software updates and reviews on products are available in real time. Your business clients and their customers want to move fast, so that they can stay connected in the most convenient and up-to-the-minute way possible. As a result, your clients’ expectations about connecting with your firm have also changed.

2. Infrastructure changes:

The technology of the past required so much infrastructure in order to be adopted. In order to have a landline, electricity, telephone wires and a phone were needed. Those setup needs didn’t just happen without investment in infrastructure on a grand scale. For this reason, technologies weren’t just adopted on a whim. Sometimes it was beyond immediate control. As infrastructure has been added globally by technology providers, users have less to do in order to access the technology. All one has to do now is buy a smartphone and everything else is already in place.

Technology is progressing at rates never before seen, yet your clients are keeping up. It’s important to embrace the new technology because your future clients are. A recent survey of 1,000 business owners by business payments network Bill.com found that millennials are looking for companies to offer more services utilizing technology. Seek opportunities to stay ahead so that you are viewed as up to speed with helpful technology and capable of meeting this new generation of clientele’s needs.

Another survey, the 2013 CCH Leaders Now and Next Survey, of accounting firms, found that firms that are “technology pioneers,” or those that are among the first to adopt new technologies, generate higher revenue and higher profits than other firms.

There are so many technologies available in the accounting and consulting space that can help make a firm more efficient, thus more competitive, and attractive to prospects and current clients. Among them are cloud-based technologies that allow firm members and clients to access information from anywhere and software that automates financial analysis or bill-paying or other important services to business owners. Consider trying these technologies, so your firm can differentiate itself and attract the next generation of business.

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Thomas Curley is a marketing associate at Sageworks, a financial information company that provides financial analysis and valuation applications to accounting firms.