growth

seven steps to unlocking the innovation engine in your office.

join the brainstorming session.

by rick telberg
at large

does creativity belong in finance and accounting? or is that a pandora’s box we’d best leave shut?

if there’s any single lesson to be learned from the year 2006, it’s that creativity is an essential ingredient to success in the finance, accounting and tax profession — if not the essential ingredient. creativity is the foundation for all innovation, all new ideas. it turns challenges into opportunities. it turns failure into success. but it doesn’t always come naturally. it takes learning and practice. and it’s rarely taught or nurtured well — or consistently. read more →

“cpa wanted…” just won’t cut it anymore.

analysis by bruce w. marcus
get the free download: a white paper offered in partnership with the marcus letter

executive summary

“cpa wanted. at least 5 years experience with audits. tax experience a plus. benefits.”

it’s amazing how much recruiting advertising is as sparse as that, seeking accounting professionals with the same limited imagination that a storekeeper might use to hire someone to sweep the floor.

no wonder recruiting is such a problem for accounting firms and finance departments.

in these days of acute shortages of trained and experienced professional personnel, in an era of intensive competition between firms for superior personnel, it’s startling to see recruiting techniques that may have worked in the depression years, but are certainly not up to the needs of today’s accounting firms.

of all the competitive points faced today by accounting firms, perhaps the most urgent is recruiting. with the explosion of work caused by new regulation, such as sarbanes-oxley, with the shortage of much needed skilled professionals, especially those versed in new regulations and technologies, with the competition for this kind of talent most urgently needed in smaller communities and particularly in smaller firms, with greater demands from an increasingly sophisticated clientele, new views of recruiting become a major concern.

more…
— 9 essential ingredients to fixing the problem
— 4 management techniques you must know

get it now: recruiting the best talent in a competitive environment. free download. read more →

accountants vie for document management, mobility, safety and security.

by rick telberg
for hewlett-packard

battling in a competitive marketplace, public accountants and tax practitioners are warily eyeing one another’s technology initiatives – fearful both of falling too far behind or getting too far ahead.

as they compare practices, they’re finding peers, colleagues and competitors focusing on a few key issues. what are they finding?
? the paperless office
? advanced productivity
? easy mobility
? securing their own and their clients’ data
? disaster recovery and backup
? wireless networking
? wifi connections

just listen to a few of your colleagues… read more →