The accounting and consulting industry is changing rapidly. In addition to emerging technologies and the ever-evolving compliance and risk environment, firms are also dealing with unexpected obstacles brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Professionals must now connect with one another and their clients remotely while still providing the same quality service.
“The pandemic and work-from-home [situations] have actually caused many firms to rethink how they work and rethink the tools they work with,” said Mark Holman, President of Accounting and Consulting and Chief Strategy Officer at Intapp.
One major problem that accounting and consulting firms face is accessing siloed data stored in different offices, systems, or applications — a task that is made even more difficult when having to work remotely. For this reason, more and more people are recognizing the importance of building a connected firm.
During a recent webinar, “Succeeding as a Connected Firm in 2021 and Beyond,” both Holman and José Lazares, Senior Vice President of Product and Business Management at Intapp, explored how connected platforms are poised to change the ways accounting and consulting firms conduct business. According to Holman, leaders need to consider five key factors when building a successful connected firm:
- Supercharged people: Utilize the skills of both new and current talent, and encourage them to keep updating their skills and knowledge.
- Faster growth: Offer clients additional benefits for a reasonable price, and closely engage with clients so they’ll continue to work with your firm — and recommend you to others.
- Higher returns: Evaluate your current processes and analyze how you can make them more efficient.
- Managed risk: Find tools and processes to manage risk quickly and appropriately so you can begin working on engagements faster.
- Successful clients: Ensure clients have all the information they need when they need it.
Recognizing the need for firms to connect their people and data, Intapp developed Intapp, a connected firm management solution. Specifically designed to meet the various and unique needs of the industries we serve, Intapp offers three core benefits:
- Intapp offers an integrated suite of best-of-breed solutions to support the entire client engagement lifecycle from origination through execution to final outcome.
- Our core set of data and API services allow users to unify and leverage data to drive insights and decision-making as well as reduce the overall operating costs and improve the firm’s efficiency.
- Our prebuilt set of integrations and supporting integration platform capabilities allow users to connect the firm’s data to create differentiated value to provide the insights and actions needed to manage business.
“We believe that embracing purpose-built connected cloud technology will help you better position and respond to changing market dynamics,” Lazares explained. “What we’re doing is providing a standardized set of reporting and analytics capabilities that leverage a common embedded technology structure.”
Register now to watch the webinar on demand and learn more about the importance of building a connected firm, and how Intapp can help.