Last week, before I attempted to out-eat the entire five boroughs that
comprise New York City (and you can toss in Long Island for good measure), I
hosted back-to-back webinars on the trends and issues that are currently making
more than a slight dent on the public accounting profession and in
not-so-subtle ways are basically reshaping how CPA firms conduct business.
As I pointed out then (and for those who weren’t in attendance, will
reiterate now) one of the primary — if not the leading — change makers is the
advent and adoption of new technologies. Whether it’s the rising user rate of
cloud applications, the adoption of intra-firm portals, or making a firm-wide
decision to go paperless (or perhaps more accurately “less paper”); whether the
profession is ready or not, those firms that procrastinate with regard to
technology implementation and upgrades will more than likely be the ones that
get left behind.
But headlining this evolution is inarguably the exponential increase in
in mobile devices.
If, like me, you have two children under the age of 21 you have probably
have experienced this phenomenon first-hand, waiting in snaking lines at one of
the local wireless carriers after you’re
reminded a beyond-annoying number of times that their mobile phones are
eligible for an upgrade.
According to A.C. Nielsen research, the average teenager sends and
receives more than 3,000 texts and makes and receives nearly 650 phone calls
per month. And no, that’s not a misprint. At Chez Carlino, that figure may even
be higher. Thank God for those unlimited plans.
But I digress.
The spike in mobile device usage has also allowed CPAs 24/7 access to
client files and information and not only allows them to work remotely
untethered to desks, but brings to an end the days of CPAs schlepping
footlockers of audit work papers to a client, a trend that no doubt cut down on
chiropractic visits.
Recently, I read an article
that told on how Top 100 firm Carr,
Riggs & Ingram created a new mobile Web site that provides smartphone users
with access to the sections of the accounting firm’s portal that are most often
visited by mobile users including information about the practice, contact
numbers for CRI partners, its service offerings and client categories.
Users can also search for a CRI location by
entering a city, state, and zip code, or allowing the site to access the user’s
GPS location. The mobile site also offers driving directions and maps of CRI
office locations.
The result? A 373% growth in in viewership by
mobile device users.
You don’t need Kreskin to tell you that you
will no doubt see more firms follow similar mobile strategies.
Meanwhile, I just received my wireless bill
for May. I should have known something was amiss when the mailman delivered it
with a hand truck.
That call from A.C. Nielsen should be coming
any day now.
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