get ready to move ahead with no map.
by jody padar
from success to significance: the radical cpa guide
the product manager in a cpa firm is the leader in developing new products that complement the firm’s strategy.
more on radicalism: father, son team up to capitalize on capacity | tips from a veteran product manager | productized 1099s the new vision way | karbon builds a practice management platform on steroids | why our clients need us to be radical | introducing the fifth radical tenet: the business model | dear midsized firms: yes, you can change | the four tenets of radical firms: a brief review
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therefore, you must know your firm’s strategy for this person to be successful.
this role works closely with all department heads: technical accounting and tax, technology, practice leaders, marketing, and r&d, always with the customer expectation in mind, to ultimately create a solution to provide to and impact the end user.
here’s the kicker: it may or may not be a cpa. the person just really needs to understand the market. most product managers in technology are not engineers but business people.
why can’t we bring business people to accounting firms? it seems to me that in firms today, the mba is needed as much as an msa or mst.
but more importantly, someone at your firm just may naturally have the skill set to be that product manager. do you know who they are?
we know strategy is important. we also know that the person needs to have an exceptional understanding of the market, so much so that they surpass market expectations. they also must have a love for technology, but aren’t the “it guy.” this is a person who is just naturally attracted to all the latest in technology, because we must consider the emergence and evolution of ai, iot and other new technologies as you build them into your firm.
“encouraging cpas to think like product companies is spot on because you’ll be able to just embed all this technology into your service and really differentiate in the market,” said nick goode, executive vp of product at sage.
“figure out what is going to be general, basic usage of artificial intelligence in the world or in small businesses or business customers,” he said. “then figure out, ‘what can i leverage from that technology?’ build a road map of services that [you] can deliver to [your] clients. the cutoff point for me has to be anything that can’t be completely automated and that they can do on their own or figure out on their own.”
strategy is all year long.
cpas are familiar with strategy; many firms have created three- or five-year plans at their firm retreats, in between rounds of golf.
but what we’re talking about is much bigger than a retreat. this is not a once-a-year process. strategy needs to be ongoing, so much so that it’s baked into your dna. connecting your firm’s goals and initiatives back to your product management should be representative of your strategy.
after all, we all know the story of the poor strategic plan. you gear up for your partner retreat and pump out a plan, and then you go back to your firm, where the plan becomes a static file on your desktop or an outdated pdf on your intranet, and/or gets placed in your firm administrator’s filing cabinet. you had good intentions, but you know, you have customers to focus your energy. and implementation and execution is so hard!
if you use something like aha!, you can manage your firm and your products and keep that fluid accountability going. the document becomes a living, recurring event process with built-in accountability. you can use this at weekly, monthly or quarterly meetings to prioritize which changes and innovation need to happen in your firm. you can put timelines around activities and priorities. this is different than a five-year plan, because, let’s face it, you can’t wait five years anymore. in fact, i don’t even think sometimes we can wait until after tax season. innovation is happening so quickly now that we need to at least have it on our radar. we can’t just plan off-season. we need to make sure during tax season, change is happening, too.
from practice management to product management
what is fun for me about being part of this (growing) radical cpa movement is that our firms can all look different from each other. and that we keep evolving.
that said, i have noticed a somewhat disturbing trend among cloud accountants – which makes sense to me because we are still new at this – there are many new firms that use the same cloud-based fixed price model. so even though it’s radical to be in the cloud in the first place, there is a mimicking of models that feels static. while yes, we should share our resources and how we do things, we must remember that if your firm looks like your competitor’s or peer’s, that’s not necessarily innovation or differentiation.
and we all know how differentiation is a pain point for cpa firms.
there is a fine balance here, and it will be interesting to see how it all evolves over time. moving over to a product management methodology allows you to iterate all the time so you don’t look like every other firm out there.
most of you would never take a trip without an itinerary or a map, but i’m pretty much asking you to do just that. it’s going to be a new role for you to learn how to become a product manager and you’re going to start this job without a clear idea of what you are doing.
sound familiar?
get used to that feeling! however, the one thing all product people share is that they gained their knowledge and experience from both passed opportunities and serendipity. in other words, they did it despite not having a blueprint to guide them.
i always say i figured this out despite myself. i did it while having no formal background in product management. i was just a cpa with a master’s in taxation. you can do it, too.