Month: March 2020

Accounting industries continue to change exponentially, technologies such as AI, cloud-based accounting, automation continue to evolve. Majorly, most of the changes that has happened in the accounting field is from technology. Experts in the accounting field have witnessed these transformations and they predict that IT’s role will continue to increase in the accounting world.

Cloud-based Accounting

We can all agree accounting software has been around for a very long time now, and cloud-based migration is a relative phenomenon that has been emerging for close to a decade. This transition to cloud-based systems is still a work-in-progress, although many businesses have already taken the bold step to invest in it. Cloud accounting or cloud-based accounting refers to when accounting software are operated in the cloud. The word “cloud” here means internet. Traditionally, accounting software will be downloaded, installed, used and hosted on a local computer, but with cloud accounting, the software will be hosted on a remote servers, with this you or anyone can access it anywhere in the world. When it comes to accounting, cloud-based computing technologies are revolutionary. So, if you want to be updated on the real-time financial data or you want your clients to be, then it’s simply not possible without the cloud. Also, if you need to connect with your accountants or other departments for pieces of information or data, you will need cloud-based accounting software that you can use to work across numerous departments at the same time. Is your organization planning to embrace AI? Again, you will need a cloud-based network because it is the only way you can access huge amounts of data. If you or your organization are still having doubts about the future of cloud accounting or about getting started with this system, now is the time to take that leap!

The overall adoption of cloud-based accounting currently is between 45 percent and 58 percent, depending on the size of the company, according to Accounting Today 2018 survey. Accounting Today survey also mentioned that 45 percent of small, 57 percent of midsize and 58 percent of large businesses select cloud accounting over desktop-based ones. Another of its studies projected that by 2026, the global market for cloud-based accounting software would be valued at $11.8 billion.

Automation and Artificial Intelligence

The automation of accounting is one of the latest trends today. Automation and Artificial Intelligence can save time for managing accounting activities, more so, cloud accounting software can allow editing reports easily if you find any mistake in reports, this software can easily change it within a few seconds.

Automation in accounting industry is an essential technology as it brings future to it, with Optical character recognition (OCR), data extraction and classification can be done easily. AI and automation keep revolutionizing with the way they can prepare accounts in a very short time.

Artificial intelligence can help automate your bookkeeping tasks, AI’s ability to recognize images means there will be consistency when classifying accounting entries, and human errors can be minimize. Another way AI helps in accounting is to help analyze past records based on the latest developments which can help predict future occurrence.

Blockchain

Blockchain is another massive accounting technological trend that is changing the way organizations handle fund transfer and its globalization. The working principle of the blockchain technology in the accounting sector can be explained using the case of a fraudulent transaction where an attempt is being made to hack an account, or someone is trying to “spend” the same amount twice, blockchain rejects this type of transaction. Until the introduction of blockchain, individuals and corporate organizations have been handling financial transactions through a bank or some financial entity in the middle. Blockchain tech eliminates the need for these entities and provides improved security; this enables users to make transactions directly. A blockchain is a form of “trustless society,” which does not require a middle entity like banks to function.

Data Analysis

When you are making any financial decisions, you must have the right information at hand. Data mining that will help companies make critical management decisions have been brought by new software and database techniques, along with advancement in data centers. Are you still looking at ways by which data analytic can influence an accountant’s function in an organization? Well, we all know accountants work with data outputs and a vast amount of data, which helps them assess business performances within their organization. From these analyzed reports, they can view and access trends or any unusual activities within the industry. The information gathered from accounting will always be an essential element, especially when making business decisions. You must focus on this financial information, especially the data analysis of fiscal accounts.

E-commerce

E-commerce has been around for more than 40 years, and it has entered the era of shopping from home, overnight delivery, mail order catalogs, using credit cards etc. The internet has been able to take e-commerce to a much-expected height by making it an alternative for traditional purchases. This E-commerce information and technology trends will be helpful to accountants as it provides details that will allow them to find the actual cost of products. Information and technology that come with e-commerce will also enable accountants to match the real value of products with advertising expenses.

Usage of accounting software

Accounting firms now make use of different accounting software with different functionalities such as multi-tasking, optimization and customization to make their work easier, faster and accurate. Some of this software include Xero, Gusto, QuickBooks, Sage X3 and many more. According to a report by fortune business insight, it is said that accounting software market will experience a higher level of progress in years to come.

Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency have their roots in blockchain technology, this system in accounting offers a decentralize and an open ledger where all transactions are made transparent coupled with high level of security. There are many cryptocurrency accounting software available today, some of them are Bitcoin Taxes: This is used to report income and capital gains from cryptocurrencies. Zenledger: this is an accounting software that features trade history enablement, taxation, and auto-fill forms Softledger: this is a financial management platform that is use for accounting cryptocurrency and taxation purpose.

Big data in accounting

Big data in accounting has become a thing for a very long time now, for many firms, it represents an opportunity for expanding their horizon and offer new service delivery. One major example where accounting is using Big data is in auditing. Firms use what we call audit sampling to detect issues in any transactions, big data comes in handy here as it can help identify exceptions and outliers in a very large data set. Big data helps improve client experience and allows accounting firms to provide more accurate and secured services to their clients. The data they make use of for their reports will be more accurate and agile compared to some data sets done in the past.

Social Media

That social media has affected many industries across the world in a very positive way is not an overstatement and accounting industry is not left behind in this trend. Social media has helped accounting firms to increase their online presence, increase sales and profit. Social media platform such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn can help your company keep in touch with your customers and firms can use social media tools to monitor industry trends.

In present years, it has become a prevalent practice to outsource IT services to outside firms. It has been said that the information technology outsourcing industry is currently in its evolution phase and what will continue driving it is the innovations in demand such as cost-effectiveness and technology.

Let’s take a look at some interesting statistics on IT outsourcing!

According to Statista, the global market size of outsourced services reached $85.6 billion in 2018. In 2017 65% of the companies that have outsourced had continued to do it in 2018. (Outsourcing Insight). About 54% of all companies use third-party support teams to connect with customers. Furthermore, about 84.2% of outsourcing deals originated from the USA, followed by the UK at 5.2%. Spain and Australia were two other key outsourcing markets. (KPMG, 2017). The Deloitte survey results confirm a significant increase in organizations using outsourcing to enhance M&A efforts — from 45 percent in 2016 to 67 percent in 2018. The top three benefits of IT outsourcing identified by Deloitte research in 2018 are to reduce the need for transition service agreements (34%), to accelerate the integration of the new organization (33%), and to lower operating costs of the acquired entity (31%). According to Beroe Inc, the IT Services Outsourcing Market revenue is expected to rise above $531 Billion by 2022.

Main countries that provide outsourcing services

• India
• China
• Malaysia
• Thailand
• Brazil
• Indonesia
• Bulgeria
• Philippines
• Chile and
• Japan

Main Outsourced IT Functions

Maintenance, development and support — This involves outsourcing the development of your new applications or enhancing the existing one for better performance.

IT security — Security-related services such as assessments, pen testing, managing secured services can be outsourced too.

Database administration — You can also have a dedicated outsourced team to monitor and maintain your database.

Helpdesk and Desktop support — You can also outsource your desktop support services such as installation, maintenance to outside firms.

Web hosting and operations — an outside service provider can help to host, operate, and maintain your website.

IT outsourcing trends

Some of the major trends in IT outsourcing today are:

• Automation through AI
• Focus on Cybersecurity
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• The rise of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Projects

Benefits of IT outsourcing

There are many benefits and advantages to outsourcing your IT services to an outside IT services provider.

Makes you focus on Core Activities – Outsourcing some essential but mundane tasks can allow you and your employees to focus on activities that bring profit to your business without sacrificing quality or service.

You maintain lower costs – Building an in-house team or buying equipment can be expensive; it is more cost-effective to outsource. When outsources, businesses can save a considerable amount in salaries, benefit costs, taxes and other overhead costs.

Risk Management – A situation where any of your important staff is on leave, and there is nobody in the company to take his or her place. Then you can easily outsource the role to reduce the risk, and the company can keep operating while the employee is unavailable.

Other benefits of IT outsourcing include:

• It promotes growth
• Consistent results
• Resources are rapidly scalable
• Outsource team do have the right people for the

Challenges of IT outsourcing

As outsourcing has many benefits, it also does have some challenges in the industry, below is an overview of some problems you might face when outsourcing your IT services.

• Expectations – When companies outsource services, they expect certain expectations in theory, sometimes these expectations do not come out as expected in practice. Companies need to accept the fact that there will be some learning curve and a few rough patches.
• Selecting the Right Service Provider – This might be one of the most significant challenges you will face, once there is a flaw in the selection phase, this might turn bad for both parties.
• Lack of Understanding of the Contract – It gets messy when one or both affected parties do not understand the legal implications of the contract. Many outsourcing companies, most times, overlook legal issues, and at the end of the day, they face outsourcing failures.

Outsourcing your IT services will guarantee you a reduced cost in operations related to information technology while improving the effectiveness and productivity of IT. You will have full access to talented people, a wide range of skills always for the lower cost of support.

Today technology has been transforming the way businesses operate. It has given a significant impact to the modern marketplace. In today’s world, the question is not how much technology can improve your business, but is it possible to conduct business activities successfully without relying heavily on technology? Let’s look at ways technology can drive your business:

Saves money and increase productivity

Technology today can perform tasks that are required by humans to do, this allows your employees to focus their attention on some more important tasks. This can save you money by cutting back employees expenses and thereby boosts your company’s productivity. Another way technology improves productivity is email management processes, which allow you to stay on top of your inbox and ensures you are replying to every vital message.

Helps market your business

Companies can use technologies to advertise their business. The goal of marketing is to drive traffic and generate profit. So, no matter what type of business you operate, you need technology to grow your revenue. To achieve this, you will need experts in the field of search marketing, social media marketing and targeting and website optimization. Email marketing can also contribute to the growth of your business, this will allow you to reach out to your customers directly. Example of software you can use for email marketing include: Marketo, Vocus, Mailchimp, Optimove, ConvertKit, HubSpot and many more.

Offers flexibility

Technology has made running businesses easy in many unimaginable ways. Technology promote collaboration between your employees, there are some tools such as file sharing that makes this possible. It has proven to improve communication in place of work. Technologies such as electronic calendar can allow you to schedule important meeting or deadlines. It is easy to perform some tasks even from your mobile phone today, you can make conference calls, schedule appointments, remote access, real-time monitoring software without stress are just a few ways technology can give you flexibility.

Keeps User Engagement in check

This is very useful for startups and medium-sized companies. Google analytic provides us with the ability to measure user engagement towards our businesses. It gives you statistics that show how your users engage your business and show who your active users are. This in turn, can improve your conversion rate. Google analytic can also be used to target a specific audience from your competitors, winning your competitors’ customers over would mean accelerating your business growth.

Taking advantage of Web-Based Payments

New technologies such as web-based systems have made payments online very easier today, you can transact without having to go to the bank. Web-based payments have caused many businesses to flourish due to many payment options and their flexibility aspect. When your company has different web-based payment options, it gives customers the ability to choose from anyone they prefer.

Improving Work-Life Balance

Even though technology can get people overworked, it can also enable them to maintain a work-life balance. An improved network connectivity will allow your workers to work from home. Many companies today have partial or full remote offices, while others are still trying to adapt this. Some have the policy of allowing their workers to work remotely in cases of bad weather, traffic, and some other unforeseen circumstances. As some businesses are becoming paperless, employees can now work flexible hours outside of the office in cases where a work-life conflict arises. Project management software and video-conferencing tools like Skype allows employees to stay connected even when they are not physically in the same office.

Improving Customer Service

One of the major keys to a successful business is excellent customer service. Apart from selling your product and services and making profits, it would help if you also thought of your users’ experience whenever they patronize you. This is where technology comes in and drive your business, with technology, you can set up an online help desk that handles customer issues, conduct surveys or questionnaires, and schedule appointments.

In conclusion, the goal for business success is simple, you need to drive innovation with information technology. So, the first thing organizations should look out for is how to make smart IT recruiting choices. Honestly, without a solid plan for information technology, a business is not going to go far in this competitive market.

In the present world, many startups see offshore resourcing to reduce operational and final costs irrespective of the technology in place. Before going into details of how startups can reap the rewards from offshore outsourcing, let’s take a brief look at what outsourcing means.

What Is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing can be described as the process where companies engage a third-party organization; it can be locally or internationally. This third-party organization will handle any business activities in which they are being asked to do. This is a perfect approach and a widespread business practice among tech companies. Today, most of the startups out there are looking for the best solutions to their daily needs and working with an offshore team looks like a wise decision to make.

The areas that’s can be outsourced are limitless. However, during a startup stage of a business it is vital to keep your costs down while giving your full energy to the core part of the business. In order to do that it is also important to identify which areas of the business can be outsources to take the burden off and costs down while increasing the productivity up.

Smarter business areas to outsource

Accounting and Finance Services are two of the most popular outsourcing functions in businesses. These functions are vital to any business regardless of their core activity. This is where a business can be smart about their costs. Accounting and finance functions are highly adoptable to have remote working staff. With the rise and ever so popular accounting IT software also making this task even more easy and transparent. By making the decision to outsource these functions not only will save costs but it would also be a very smart step towards growth of the business while highly qualified offshore staff working for you to provide the accounting and finance services you require.

Human resource function can be one area where a business can explore to get outsource company’s help. Outsourcing some of HR functions involve hiring offshore companies to help manage personnel functions, which includes compliances, administrative tasks, company and employee benefits administration, employee’s compensation, retirement plans are just to name a few. Outsourcing HR functions help reduces the fixed cost of managing your employees as these HR firms are more efficient because they have the talent, also they are equipped with many important infrastructures. Startups can save both time and money by outsourcing HR functions and they will be able to offer good benefits to their employees.

Marketing function of a business is another area where a company can benefit from outsourcing. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say digital marketing has become an entire world of its own and it is taking over the world. When the core business focus is not in this particular field, it will be a very challenging task to master the art. As a startup, investing in digital marketing will be a very good decision to make, so you can either outsource partially or completely. Digital marketing and advertisement help increase your brand awareness, traffic, customer engagement and sales. Starting a digital marketing team in-house requires time and money, you will need to build a big team, you will need experts in content, strategy, lead generation, branding, ad campaign management, SEO and many more. The best approach is to outsource to a full-service digital marketing agency.

Customer service work is one of the most time-consuming tasks in an organization. They must interact with your customers from time to time, answer questions and get feedback. Regardless of the startup you are trying to build, it will be very easy to find the right customer service firms that will make your business grow. Outsourcing this role will increase your presence online, have a good reputation and move your business forward.

Benefits of outsourcing in startup companies

Let’s look at some of the benefits that startup companies will experience when they decide to outsource some of their business functions to another company.

Reduced operating costs and expenses: Utilizing offshore resourcing can make you enjoy significant cost savings. Especially when you outsource to some countries that have lower production costs, what do we mean by lower production cost? This means a lower cost of living for your employees in that country, which means lower salaries, as well as lower infrastructure and operational costs. Other than on salaries, you can save on taxes, employee benefits, superannuation and many other overhead costs to accommodate employees inhouse.

Helps focus more on core activities: Instead of wasting time on some time-consuming process, it will be better off to outsource and focus more on core activities of your organization. According to a study, 18% of start-ups fail every year because of in-house knowledge gaps and inadequate skill sets that could easily have been avoided by outsourcing. A startup company can dramatically reduce its operating costs in areas such as accounting, marketing, IT and legal would help them to focus and invest on their core business processes.

Greater Competitive Edge: It is easy to lose some customers when the cost of the products you build is high, but when you outsource the services, the external provider cost structure and economy of scale will provide your organization with an enhanced competitive advantage. Especially in Australia, USA and UK the costs of living, cost of raw materials and cost of labor is very high. When a startup company (especially small to medium scale) operate 100% within their country, the products and services in turn end up being very expensive as well. When this happens, these small-scale companies must complete against larger companies (those already setup large scale outsourcing) who end up providing products and services in very low prices, small businesses to fail is inevitable. Current business fails in Australia are a good example of this.

Cultural Advantage: As it stands, every organization has a varying cultural inclination and various aspects of working. Hiring an offshore team will give you the needed exposure to different planning strategies amongst other organizational activities, and you can peek into different cultures of working. Often, this strategy turns out to be beneficial to firms, so do not underestimate the importance of cultural compatibility. Its result can be the key to elevating your business to the next level.

Outsourcing enables start-ups to reach some world class professionals and gives them the opportunity to leverage a global knowledge base. Some companies outsource to allow them to gain access to the new market areas, they can easily take the point of production and service delivery closer to consumers. Outsourcing helps organizations mitigate risk and this is one of the top reasons to outsource. It gives the startup companies an opportunity to access resources that might not be available internally when they start. Finally, in this present era, many startups are in a pole position to succeed and grow, and outsourcing is a crucial component in that organizational machine. Developing in-house talent may cost startup businesses capital and time; therefore, startups should learn more on outsourcing services that can help reduce some operational costs and push up their annual turnover. Offshore resourcing is and will be the best way to grow your startup in this era.

In this present world that technology keeps growing and changing, projects become more complex to handle. 41% of projects done in 2017 were high complex projects according to a global report by the Project Management Institute. The reason for this is that many of the modern project teams have started to include employees from abroad and remote workers. Understandably, projects with short life cycles are vital to staying relevant in the market. Because of this, effective project management will be beneficial to team players in the industry.

Below are some of the best steps that can lead to effective project management:

1. Defining the Problem and Objectives

The first step to manage a project is to have a clear sense of what exactly the team is striving to achieve. For effective project management, it is very important to have a clear vision of the problem you are trying to solve and the project requirements. Most times, unclear and unsolved project requirements do results in project failure. To avoid this, it is advisable that entrepreneurs first sit down to define, research, and analyze the problem(s) they are trying to solve and the underlying factors. After the problem, the objectives and goals has been defined, the information should be documented, the teams can reference this time to time to keep them on track.

2. Hone your Communication skills

Good communication is important in effective project management. To make your projects run smoothly, you must be in consistent and effective communication with your teams, clients and any other concerned parties. If there is going to be any changes in the projects whatsoever, it is good to communicate with your team members early on. As a project manager, you need be an open book, make it easy for any of your team members to easily walk up to you to ask questions, give advice, or contributions. Ineffective communication could lead to project failure, to avoid this, make sure communication flows well among your team members.

3. Use Project Management Tools

For most successful project managers, technology is the key to make things happen, with various online management software, you can effectively manage your project and employees. This software are a way to keep tabs on all your critical project information. Project managers make use of these online management software to:

• Get access to real-time reports on any given project
• Keep up with project timelines and check each team members progress
• Customize how the task should be done
• Assess each team member’s performance

Having these tools at your fingertips is a huge advantage for both your company and management of the project.

4. Be Organized

To be effective in project management, you must stay organized. Get a working system of processing incoming emails. When you stay organized, repetitive tasks will be easy to find, stay in track with your project plan, can forecast issues/setbacks from afar, keep in track with your timeline and project scope. You have to manage your project in a way that if situations change and you need to hand over your project plan to someone else with no previous knowledge of your work, the person will not find it difficult to start with. Online software such as basecamp, can help you stay organized with your project management.

5. Know how to adapt to circumstances

It has been discussed that for effective project management, you need to set up some objectives and road-map at the start of a project, it is also essential to know how to adjust to some setbacks or circumstances that might come your way during the course of the project. And it is also important to let your team members be aware of project risks, they also need to be prepared for this and know how to quickly adapt to the circumstances.

Effective project management has been perceived to be a very complicated and demanding process and if these perceptions are not properly investigated, they tend to induce errors, risks and project failures. To manage a project can be a challenging task, but when you approach it with a good and well-structured plan, you can easily handle whatever obstacles that might come your way. Incorporating the above tips will make you go a long way in effectively managing your projects and will lead to a huge progress and profits in your products.

Technological advancements have become a force to reckon with over the years, and it keeps advancing, 2020 will be no different. IT industry is expected its way to reach $5.2 trillion in 2020. Below are some of the current ten tends in IT industry.

Automation

Autonomous like robotics, autonomous vehicles, and drones are being developed along with AI solutions. As the development of AI technologies keeps progressing, autonomous things get more brains of their own to interact and establish some inter-relations with complex systems. Today, we see self-driven cars that are capable of image recognition, voice recognition to follow commands, geolocation tracking for making routes on roads, and many other things technologies. And we don’t see this trend coming to a halt anytime soon, and it will continue growing significantly.

Human Augmentation

Human augmentation is described as a process where humans’ physical and cognitive abilities are strengthened. This technology enhances human’s capabilities beyond their current capability. Human augmentation changes what it is to be human, it enhances human’s ability to think and decide better.

Internet of Things

IOT – Many products are now built with Wi-Fi connectivity, which means you can connect them to the internet and establish a connection between them. The Internet of Things has and will continue enabling devices, cars, home appliances, and many more to be connected to each other and transfer data over the internet. According to a study, the number of IoT devices has reached 8.4 billion in 2017 and it is expected to reach 30 billion devices by this year.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) immerses people in an environment and Augment Reality (AR) enhances their environment. AR and VR were among the most prominent trends last year and is even expected to improve this year. Both AR and VR can function in entertainment, training, education, marketing, and so on. You can use any of these two in training doctors to perform surgery, offer tourists a pleasant experience, enhance marketing, theme parks, and many more.

Blockchain

When people hear the word Blockchain, all they think s cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc. It goes beyond that; Blockchain offers security that is useful in many other ways. Dissecting the word Blockchain, it can be described as data you can only add to and not change it or take away from it, that is where the term “chain” comes from, you are making a chain of data and you cannot change the previous blocks. This is what makes Blockchain so secure. It is also among the top trends; this is based on its popularity amongst business-oriented persons!

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity has been available for a very long time, it keeps evolving, and it is not going anywhere because cyber threats keep increasing daily. As long as we have black-hat hackers, cyber-security will keep emerging to defend against them.

Edge Computing

Edge computing is a distributed computing model which brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth. Even though cloud computing keeps dominating the market, we still have key players such as AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud, iCloud, and Microsoft Azure. Edge computing is the new emerging technology, and it is here to stay. Cloud computing can cause some latency in the process of getting data to a data center for processing, and Edge computing is designed to help solve some of these problems. Edge computing can serve as mini data centers and can be used to process time-sensitive data in remote locations that have no way of connecting to a centralized location.

5G Network

5G is the new mobile broadband that will replace 4G connection. 5G will provide us faster downloads and uploads and the time it takes devices to connect with wireless networks will also decrease. According to Huawei – “5G wireless networks will support 1,000-fold gains in capacity, connections for at least 100 billion devices and a 10 Gb/s individual user experience of extremely low latency, and response times, deployment of these networks will emerge between 2020 and 2030.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI has received a lot of attention in recent years, and it continues to because it has vast effects on human activities. AI refers to building computers to mimic human intelligence and perform tasks such as image and speech recognition, decision making, and many more. Since it is computers, AI does these tasks faster and more accurately than humans. Artificial intelligence technology keeps evolving rapidly because with AI, computers can process a huge amount of data much faster and can be used to make more accurate predictions than humans would. AI is being used across several industries which include Healthcare, Banking, Education, Retail and e-commerce and so on. AI uses instant analysis to make conclusions on its own by combining information from different sources using sensors, digital data, etc.

In conclusion, new technologies trends are gaining much attention in all industries. We also expect 2020 to become a year of new use cases and many possibilities. With Australia being a highly developed market economically, its ongoing success depends on how the local businesses adopt and improve technologically. With the persistent pace at which technology evolves and changes, it’s simply going to get more stimulating in the future years!