air newsletter - june 2012
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AIR Newsletter - June 2012TRANSCRIPT
June 2012
THE CLOUD____________________________________________________________
Managed Services Providers Forget Their Roots and Take to the Clouds!
I.T. BIZ BUZZ____________________________________________________________
ERP Software Implementations - Consider among the “7 Habits” to Ensure Success
Letter from Partner
TECHNOLOGY ANDTHE PROFESSIONS
YOUR ACCOUNTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESOURCE NEWSLETTER
Contents
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PARTNER LETTER2 TECHNOLOGY AND THE PROFESSIONS
Las Vegas in June. Warm and productive. I was with 1,600 of my closest friends (well, many friends, but not 1,600) at the AICPA Tech+ Practitioners Conference, which, for you non-CPA’s, means that it is a combination of Information Technology advisors and CPA firm leaders.
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THE CLOUD4 MANAGED SERV ICES PROV IDERS FORGE T THE IR ROOTS AND
TAKE TO THE CLOUDS!With the rise of Cloud computing, we are rapidly entrusting more of our data, our computer power and business-critical software applications off-site and into the Cloud.
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I.T. BIZ BUZZ5 ERP SOF T WARE IMPLEMENTAT IONS - CONSIDER AMONG THE
“7 HABITS” TO ENSURE SUCCESSCFOs, you are well aware of the emotional response that the letters “ERP” can bring to executives and board members.
June 2012
1 | SingerLewak June 2012
June 2012 SingerLewak | 2
PA R T N E R L E T T E R
TECHNOLOGY AND THE PROFESSIONSBY BOB GREEN, CPA.CITP | PARTNER AND PRACTICE [email protected]
Hello, friends and colleagues!
Las Vegas in June. Warm and productive. I was with 1,600 of my closest friends (well, many friends, but not 1,600) at the AICPA Tech+ Practitioners Conference, which, for you non-CPA’s, means that it is a combination of Information Technology advisors and CPA firm leaders. The attendees were like many of you - profession-als focused on better serving the business community. This led me to the theme for this month: The importance that information technology plays in the profes-sions . What follows are a few considerations that make tech-nology more prevalent, relevant and permanent to the world in which we operate...
Efficiency - In the big picture, we are all doing more, with less. This means an increased focus on efficiencies and effectiveness, without compromising service quality or the value of the deliv-erables we provide.
Regulation - We are pushed to be verse with, comply with, and ad-vise on regulatory requirements
and guidelines, like never before. CPA’s, lawyers, bankers and other professionals must maintain cur-rent knowledge and be able to talk and act intelligently on their clients’ behalf. Compliance with regulations becomes a founda-tional service and knowledge expectation from our clients, and not a differentiator.
Competition - we can’t expect to attract new clients – or retain ex-isting clients – unless we are will-ing to differentiate ourselves from the competition. If professional or his/her firm looks weary, old-fashioned, or just plain “behind the times” – competitors will easily find ways to differentiate themselves in ways that are low hanging fruit in the service fruit tree orchard.
Expectations – clients and prospects expect that the pro-fessionals they work with to be current with their tools, and have “sharpened their saws” (thank you Mr. Covey) to enable them to DELIVER the best solutions that they can, for the client. That means we need to be “up”
on professional guidance, and METHODOLOGIES that will be used to deliver the results that clients expect.
All of the above points – Ef-ficiency, Regulation, Competi-tion and Expectations – can managed more effectively by the intelligent use of informa-tion technology in the delivery of value to clients. What I saw at the AICPA conference was not “technology for technology sake” (e.g.; not the latest/greatest
Compliance with regulations becomes a
foundational service and knowledge expectation
from our clients, and not a differentiator
just because it is cool to carry an iPad around) – but rather – the meaningful use of technology to deliver more effective, meaning-ful and timely services to clients. I provide examples below, for the CPA profession, but literally all professions gain from this. We’re beyond the “what’s the new tool” stage. We are all now at the “how can I better serve my client?” stage.
To that end, if you are a profes-sional I encourage you to seek education about the tools and methodologies that are most prevalent for your industry – now. Time is of the essence. Technology has advanced so quickly that each week that goes by you are missing out on new tools that can make your world and your client’s experiences with you that much better. Find this information at industry confer-ences and webcasts that are put on by objective organizations – or, shamelessly, find a consultant to discuss this with.
The CPA profession, for example, is becoming far more purpose-fully automated than ever before. Some examples range from the audit documentation tools to cloud-based tax software, to elec-tronic document management and client document portals; from bookkeeping software in the cloud to impressive statistical/analytical software that provides industry trends for use in the audit process, and more.
And, the profession is also quickly responding to the chang-es in how the world does business technologically. For example, entire new standards have been written and made effective in the last year that are used to attest on IT Controls at Service Orga-nizations (e.g.; those businesses who hold and/or manage data of others). This standard, as well as the subject matter, would have not been particularly conceivable 10 years ago.
The world’s changing. Profes-sions must keep up… If you’re a professional – ask yourself if you’ve done enough to sharpen your saw in the manner in which technology can make you and your firm a better provider – for your clients’ benefit. We’re happy to discuss this anytime...
The rest of our newsletter focuses on some happenings, ranging from the increased need we see to have guidance in selection of important software for growing businesses, to the ability to en-able you to test drive real Cloud Computing products, and a few words about other current tech-nologies.
Have a good rest of the month!
Best,
3 | SingerLewak June 2012
BOB GREEN CAN BE REACHED AT [email protected]
OR 818.999.3924
June 2012 SingerLewak | 4
With the rise of Cloud comput-ing, we are rapidly entrusting more of our data, our computer power and business-critical soft-ware applications off-site and into the Cloud. And these services – whether described as “managed” or not – are only as reliable as the wire down which they are delivered, therefore providing a complete and network-integrated service has never been more im-portant. Getting a complete solu-tion that includes full network management is is not something that is common anymore, but it is getting better.
Things were so simple in the 1990s. Back in those heady early days of the web, businesses usu-ally needed a technology “service provider” for one thing only –
Internet connectivity. There was
a plethora of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to choose from as they sprang up to take advan-tage of the new market demand. The 90s were great times to be an ISP; yet take a look around now and you’ll see that few of these providers still exist as independent entities, and still fewer position themselves as mere “Internet” Services Providers. Many are either out of business or have been completely remod-eled as Manages Services Pro-viders (MSP) or Cloud Services Providers (CSP).
Cloud providers now offer any number of services, from host-ing, backup and data storage to managed security, CRM and Software as a Service (SaaS). All these services, like those pro-
vided by MSPs, fulfilling genuine business needs and bringing real benefits to end-users. But as the “Service Provider” tag evolved from ISP to MSP to CSP, the fo-cus became less on providing an holistic, end-to-end service, and more about offering the widest variety of services and capabili-ties to end users. This results in needing multiple vendors though, to manage the areas not currently being managed by these provid-ers – such as the network itself.
The world has become ever-more reliant on Cloud services and the importance of network reliabil-ity and accountability has never been greater. If the xSP’s are to play their part in helping custom-ers overcome these issues, Man-aged and Cloud Service Providers need to reconnect with their heritage in connectivity. While we cannot hope to return to the simplicity of the 1990s, MSPs can still fulfill their original purpose: to take responsibility for the management and operations of its most critical IT functions.
T H E C L O U D
Cloud providers now offer any number of
services, from hosting, backup and data storage
to managed security, CRM and Software as a
Service (SaaS)
MANAGED SERVICES PROVIDERS FORGET THEIR ROOTS AND TAKE TO THE CLOUDS!BY RICK MARK | SERVICE AREA [email protected]
RICK MARK CAN BE REACHED AT [email protected]
OR 818.999.3924
5 | SingerLewak June 2012
CFOs, you are well aware of the emotional response that the let-ters “ERP” can bring to execu-tives and board members. The response is often not pleasant. That does not have to be the case. If there is one thing we can con-firm from our years of experience with ERP selection and imple-mentation project management, it is that more often successes are assured from ERP upgrades/projects when you use the “begin with the end in mind” strat-egy (thank you Steven Covey). This sounds simple, but it takes strategic leadership and mindful management of an ERP upgrade project team’s activities - to achieve. Simply, when you take on an ERP upgrade, we strongly
recommend that the leadership or steering committee first develop key objectives as to what is to be achieved, and how success of these objectives will be measured. Then, more specifics need to be developed re: what the “end” will look like, from a reporting and process improvement perspec-tive. And, consider the specific information needs and data fields
that will be critical for capture in the ERP solution, as well as how they will be used in assessment of the business’ performance. These are but a few of many things that we recommend people consider when taking on a critical ERP upgrade project.
WHAT’S AHEAD: Next month we’ll hit on a deeper discussion about these recommended activi-ties, and by September we’ll be sharing these and some ERP suc-cess stories in our CFO Essentials Roundtables – stay tuned!
CLOUD-BASED SYSTEMS WEBINAR SERIESSEE AVECTRA’S CLOUD EXPERTS AS RELATES TO YOUR INDUSTRY!
In December we became business partners with Avectra - a software company that provides internet-based business operation software – meaning, it manages membership services and data, provides for online registration for events, and enables online capabilities for selling memberships and other
“merchandise” for nonprofits and other industries. Upcoming webinars will be posted in future news-letters. For past webinars, go to:
WWW.SINGERLEWAKSYSTEMS.COM
I . T . B I Z B U Z Z
ERP SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATIONS – CONSIDER AMONG THE “7 HABITS” TO ENSURE SUCCESSBY BOB GREEN, CPA.CITP | PARTNER AND PRACTICE [email protected]
BOB GREEN CAN BE REACHED AT [email protected]
OR 818.999.3924
TO SIGN UP FOR NE WSLE T TERS, PLE ASE V IS I T S INGERLE WAK .COM/CONTACT
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818.999.3924 ext.4623
SingerLewak is a leading regional accounting services firm in California with offices in Los Angeles, Orange County, Woodland Hills, Monterey Park, San Diego, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Serving California since 1959, SingerLewak has established a reputation for excellence as professionals with unparalleled expertise in the Accounting and Management Consulting industry. Providing the services of a large firm with a blended environment of practices, industry specializations and particular attention to hands-on service, SingerLewak continues to demonstrate leadership and industry growth year-over-year. Our client relationship approach and industry excellence is renowned.
We are nationally recognized as active community and professional services partners, working among many sectors of the business world. Our core services deliver results whether it’s auditing, accounting, entrepreneurial business services, tax preparation, business manage-ment, SEC filings, transactions, enterprise risk manage-ment, forensic accounting, business valuation, litigation support, or consulting.
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