Embrace Change to Drive Innovation

When CPA.com published its “Insights into the CPA of the Future Study,” 92% of CPAs reported that they were not “future ready.” Future ready is defined as the capacity to be aware, predictive and adaptive of emerging trends, innovations and changes in business, population and the social environment.

In a recent McKinsey Poll, 84% of global executives reported that innovation was extremely important to their growth strategies. That same report also reported that 94% of those executive were dissatisfied with their own organization’s innovation.

To sum it up, our firms and our profession are not future ready, and we are not innovative enough to remain relevant and execute our growth strategies. WOW! What could be killing innovation when so many executives realize it is extremely important to survival and growth? What is holding so many CPAs back from preparing for the future?

In short, conventional wisdom, group think and complacency is killing us. In a time of rapid, disruptive change, we simply cannot remain relevant and maintain the status quo. However, this rapid change brings us an abundance of opportunity, because our profession has the skills and insights that companies will need to go forward.

We must innovate to remain relevant and be future ready. How we serve clients, how we lead with new services, how we deliver proactive insights, how we market, how we work, where we work, when we work, how we grow leaders, how we learn, our technology tools, and our competition are all changing rapidly.

Let’s embrace this change. Instead of being buried in administration and managing and controlling, let’s learn, innovate and collaborate and get future ready. Yesterday’s skills will not be sufficient for tomorrow.   

Next week, I will be presenting at the Digital CPA Conference. This year's theme, "Taking the Lead" will help you align the latest innovations with your long-term strategies which will in turn help you take the lead. The transformation to future ready requires firm-wide change and leaders must move quickly if they want to outpace the competition. Is your firm ready?