Michael Hopwood, CEO of Customer Consulting Group Pty Ltd joins us to talk about how technology can be leveraged to drive efficiency and enhance customer experience.
ABOUT SKY ACCOUNTANTS PODCAST:
A Podcast focusing on the issues that affect business owners in Australia.
From the latest tax changes, to finance and developments in employment law and HR, the Sky team bring you all the latest on the most topical issues that Australian business owners need to be across.
Michael Hopwood, CEO of Customer Consulting Group Pty Ltd joins us to talk about how technology can be leveraged to drive efficiency and enhance customer experience.
ABOUT SKY ACCOUNTANTS PODCAST:
A Podcast focusing on the issues that affect business owners in Australia.
From the latest tax changes, to finance and developments in employment law and HR, the Sky team bring you all the latest on the most topical issues that Australian business owners need to be across.
Ashley Carmichael 00:14
Hello, welcome to the Sky Accountants Podcast. This is episode four. I'm Ashley Carmichael and today I have with me Michael Hopwood. Michael is the CEO of Customer Consulting Group and they specialize in streamlining business processes by leveraging technology. Michael's got over 20 years of experience and has worked with some very well-known names and has also worked for some well-known names like Microsoft, Sage and Telstra to name a few. Michael's also created and ran some software consultancy firms before going on to start CCG. Now, we thought it would be great to get Michael on today to share his wealth of knowledge about what CCG does and what some of the most common challenges that they help businesses with. So, Michael.
Michael Hopwood 01:25
Hi Ashley! How are you doing?
Ashley Carmichael 01:27
Michael, I'm good. How are you?
Michael Hopwood 01:29
Not too bad. Thanks for having me on.
Ashley Carmichael 01:32
No, a pleasure. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you're here to talk about today. Tell us what you do and what are some of those common challenges?
Michael Hopwood 01:45
Yeah, sure! So basically, we're a business software consultancy firm and what we really do is we enable better ways to do business. Really, there's three primary ways which we focus on. We call them our better ways. The first one is about building better relationships. To do that, we do things like replacing or setting up databases. A lot of organizations tend to have multiple spreadsheets or multiple systems all across the business with varying levels of accuracy and access. So we consolidate all of that. We also help people then market to those organizations or individuals once they're in there. We do things like track their customer support inquiries and customer service inquiries as well. Then go through and do things like tracking all their jobs and project management. All of that really just helps an organization build a better relationship with their primary stakeholders. The next better way which we focus on is about increasing productivity. To do that, we do things like introduce a whole range of automated alerts. We really centralize all the information in one spot so that everyone in the organization doesn't have to go around and duplicate their effort and really minimize the amount of touch which we have on our data so that they can actually be working with the stakeholders more providing that better experience as well. It's also about collaboration tools. How do we communicate with other people in the organization? How do we communicate with our customers, with our partners, etc. in a nice streamlined and efficient way? Then the last better way which we primarily focus on is around reducing paperwork. We do that primarily through two different methods. One is around digital forms. So this might be just utilized internally. You might have a whole host of paperwork where people go through and they fill out a little form and then that gets asked off to somebody else who then goes and types that into a system and then there's something else of emailing through for example. We can streamline all of that, put it into a nice digital form, have some automation associated with it. The other one is around digital signatures as well. It could be signing up a new contract or just getting some form of agreement on something. What we do is we take all of the paperwork, we put that into a digital format, send it out, capture that digital signature. People can sign even from their mobile phone and really just streamlines that whole process of getting from point A to point B. That's what we do there.
Ashley Carmichael 04:00
Well, that's a lot in a few short sentences. I can imagine that there's a really diverse range of applications of what you're doing there.
Michael Hopwood 04:15
Yeah, definitely.
Ashley Carmichael 04:17
In terms of applications or tools, are there any in particular that you work with or that you prefer?
Michael Hopwood 04:24
Yeah, sure. Look through my 20-odd years, I've been certified in seven different CRM or customer relationship management systems with other forms of business management tools as well. I've really seen the market develop over the years. But at Customer Consulting Group, we've landed primarily on two different vendors. Our primary vendors are Microsoft and Zoho. Within the Microsoft space, we largely work with their software application called Dynamics 365. Even within that, we work focused on a smaller subset which is around the sales, marketing, customer service, and field service automation tools that they've got. On top of that, we do leverage from their workflow automation tool, which is called Microsoft Power Automate, and their portal capability, which is Microsoft Power Pages. Across all of that technology, that's something that we work in with Microsoft. From a Zoho perspective, we work in with most of their applications. We do probably more work in with the CRM than anything else, but they've got a plethora of applications which we work with. I guess some of our clients come to us and say, well, what is the right application to use? Sometimes our engagement is actually out about implementing a software. It's actually going out to the market and saying, well, what's your business requirements and what's the right tool for you? Then if it is, happens to be a Microsoft or a Zoho application, we'll put that forward. But sometimes it's not that. It's actually a matter of it might be another tool which is available. We'll do general consulting, write out some documentation, and assist an organization actually go to market and find the right tool as well.
Ashley Carmichael 06:08
That's great. Look, listening to you talk about those Microsoft applications and Zoho, and look, I think something that I've had my eyes open to is that there's a lot there that most businesses are not across. There's some really great tools that can be used and not just your standard Microsoft Office.
Michael Hopwood 06:33
Exactly. Yeah, not for sure.
Ashley Carmichael 06:38
It's great for people to be aware that there's some really great tools that can be harnessed there. But look, tell me a little bit about the typical type of organization that you work with, that the organizations you can help.
Michael Hopwood 06:56
Yeah, sure. We primarily focus on what we call growing businesses. These are really the organizations. Most of the time, they're the small organizations which are growing to that medium type business. As you're going through growth, there's a lot of problems that tend to come up within a business. There's things like, now we need to provide access to our data to more people, but we need to do that in a secure way. We need to make sure that we're only giving access to the relevant information to the right people at the right time. It's not just a matter of passing around a spreadsheet. Even things like, if you do happen to have a spreadsheet, but then there's multiple people in the organization which might need to update some data, you can get into situations where that might be locking and all that sort of stuff. That's a process there. Other forms of things is around ensuring that the way that you're dealing with anything that comes in the business, whether it be with your customers, whether it be internally, is done in a consistent manner and done efficiently as well. As an organization grows from a small organization into a medium business, then there's a lot of these consistent things that happen. We see that as an area whereby technology can really assist. For us, there is quite a lot of other players in the market that do the similar sort of things that we do, but a lot of them tend to focus either more on the smaller type organizations or the very large type organizations. There's not a lot that actually seem to provide that service for these small to medium growing businesses. That's where we found a little bit of a niche for our customers. We tried to provide that enterprise level service, but for a more cost-effective rate. There's a couple of industries that we focus on, probably more than others, real estate being one, not-for-profit organizations and membership. Actually, not-for-profit, we even have a service offering or an agreement where we'll provide reduced rates for not-for-profit organizations just a little way of us helping give back to help their cause. We don't say no to other organizations that are in other industries, it's just probably you've got a bit more experience and IP and knowledge of how in those particular fields.
Ashley Carmichael 09:23
Okay, that's great. That's good. Did you want to just talk a little bit more about how you can help those membership-based organizations?
Michael Hopwood 09:35
Yeah, sure. Typically, with membership-based organizations, we've got there's obviously the people that are prospective members. How do you handle those inquiries coming through into the organization? What sort of things do you do? What sort of information do you provide them? We help them out with a bit of the sales process, if you like. Typically, what it will be is a lot of our clients have different sorts of membership packages which are available to their members. What often then happens also is that their members need to select a particular package and then they get a range of service options for that. More often than not, there is a fee which needs to be collected from each of those members as well. Typically, it's on a time, a pre-scheduled time basis. What we do is we have financial type systems which basically people can go through, put their credit card details in or put their bank account type details in, and then on the first of the month or whatever timeframe is required, then it will go through and automatically collect those fees and then ensure that their membership is up to date. Once that membership is up to date, then we do things like provide access to certain types of information based on their level through portals. A lot of what we do is around allowing self-service of the members to either provide information to the membership or base organisation or consume information from the membership organisation. We do a lot of that through portals, whether it be Microsoft or Zoho, we do both there, and really trying to minimise the amount of human involvement and requirement to process data from the association itself, but still providing that really good customer experience for all of the members that sign up there.
Ashley Carmichael 11:35.
Yeah, look, I think that's a really great example of how to do process automation the right way. Those are the sorts of processes that organisations would typically do really manually.
Michael Hopwood 11:50
Absolutely.
Ashley Carmichael 11:52
And it would be so time consuming and so many errors and oh, nothing can happen because Charlie's on holidays for a week. I think it's a really great example of the power of this sort of thing and how it can really transform a business and drive efficiency and customer experience and all that stuff. So, look, tell me, say if I were to come to you today and say, Michael, I'm interested. What would your approach look like? How would we work through that?
Michael Hopwood 12:29
Yeah, so we start off initially, I guess, probably first thing to understand is that we generally have an approach of a crawl-walk run. So the reason we do that is that we understand that that making too much change at one point in time can often have the opposite effect of what people are after. And so it's sort of like you put a drop in, a drop in the water, and then you'll see this big ripple effect going through and it's so that one little drop can actually have a big impact. We call it the ripple effect. It's actually even a component of our logo whereby we're trying to basically say that you can have a small change but introduce a big impact into the business. And so what we do from an overall approach is we go through and we do a high level of discovery session where we understand what's your main driver's way, you're talking to us, what sort of things do you want to achieve? Is it, you know, increase customer satisfaction? Is it increased sales? Is it reduced costs? Whatever it might be, we understand where you want to get to in the long run. We then go through a process of trying to figure out what's the highest priority associated with that and we'll develop a little bit of a roadmap to say, well, we would recommend doing this step first, get that up and running, get some return on investment and then do the next step, the next step, the next step. So once we've done this high level discovery, we put forward an indicative proposal which basically outlines the time frames and associated costs with doing that phase one of an overall project. And then once we've got agreement on that, then we go through and we do a more detailed scoping or envisioning session. So the first part about the high level discovery and the initial proposal, there's no charge for that. Now that's just part of our service to help us understand the clients or the organizations that we're working with and make sure that you're, we're all on the same page and we've got a good, good relationship with each other. Once we've done that, if you proceed, the next stage is the scoping side and then it is paid engagement. And with that, we really get into a lot of detail, the very specific type nature of what needs to be done by who, when and what the implications of doing all that stuff are. Now, most of the time, what we'll do is we'll also produce a range of documentation as a result of that scoping session. Sometimes it'll be things like business process flowcharts, understanding what the current process is and what the to be process is. So we'll design all of that and send that through. But also sometimes people require a real detailed specification. And so we'll go through and document that. Now some of our specifications have actually been known to be thousands of pages long. And so that can be quite an activity. But, you know, for example, some of our government requirements or government customers require that as a part of the process. So it's an optional step in there. But what we're really doing is we're coming up with this solution design and putting something on paper or digitally to help you understand what we're going to deliver. Now, sometimes though, it's actually more of a, what we call a user story, part of an agile process where we're understanding what the business requirements are, what do we need to build, etc. And so once we've done all of this, this is really about making sure that our clients and us are 100% on the same page before we're getting to the next stage of delivery, which is about going through the solution build.
Ashley Carmichael 15:49
If I can just ask a question there, sorry to interrupt.
Michael Hopwood 15:51
Yeah, sure.
Ashley Carmichael 15:52
But it sounds to me like through that process, organizations might be really really delving into their systems or processes where they may not have ever really done that before. And would it be the case that a lot of them sort of start to really evaluate those processes and say, hey, we, you know, that's inefficient, we need to improve this, etc., etc. So it sounds like even just going through that process and getting your expert advice on what best practice might look like, that in itself would be highly valuable.
Michael Hopwood 16:36
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's, we often find that through these sessions, there is not just as much, but a fairly close amount of activity done inside the organization of validating and reconfirming and determining, okay, well, just because this is how we've done it for the last couple of years, is that the right way? Now, how do we want to do it in the future? Imagine if we could take off the shackles and just sort of have an ideal process that got us from point A to point B, what would that look like? And so we go through that and explore it. And sometimes it's actually not even the technology which does it. It's actually about understanding how we progress processes in the business. And if there can be a technology aspect to assist with that and streamline it, great. That's what we can deliver. But it's the simple process or activity of going through those processes and documenting it and saying, how do we get from point A to point B really does help an organization determine where their inefficiencies and how they can really streamline the business from there.
Ashley Carmichael 17:39
Okay, great. And so what comes next at that point?
Michael Hopwood 17:45
Yep. So basically, once we've done all that, we sort of, you know, we're on the same page around what would need to be done. We'll produce a statement of work, which is sort of a refined proposal, if you like, updated timelines, updated costing. And then once we know if we get approval to proceed, then we go into a solution build aspect. And we've got a couple of different ways which we work. We do both agile and waterfall-type projects, depending on what our clients require. But basically, we're going through and we're taking all of those business requirements and we're building it into the software for them. Once we've done that, we built it all up, we'd go through a process of user acceptance testing to make sure that the end users, which are going to be using the system, are happy with it. And it's not just good enough to say that, yes, the system can achieve that result, but it's what's the user experience like as well. Because if I could process something, but it takes me 50 steps to do that, probably not a good experience. So for us, it's also around sort of saying, okay, well, how do we streamline the user experience, make sure it's nice and easy to understand and that people can do this with minimal training. So that's the sort of feedback which we get through our user acceptance testing. And once that's done, and agreed that we've got a nice, easy to use system that's actually going to provide the outcome, then we go through a process of data migration, getting from your old systems or spreadsheets into the new system. And then we've got that through, provide the training through to the rest of users and then basically get it all implemented.
Ashley Carmichael 19:18
Yeah, well, that sounds very professional. I'm sure you would have more war stories than I do. But I've seen, over the years, many instances where the vendor is, it's usually just a software vendor saying, yeah, just plug it in. And it all goes pear shaped because that documentation and process and training and user acceptance and migration and all of those steps, none of it gets done. And it can really make a huge impact on whether or not it's a successful project or not and delivers those and benefits to it. And sometimes it's not so much the software or the tool, it's the why in which the project is tackled.
Michael Hopwood 20:12
100%. Yeah, through my years, I've seen some really good systems built. But because the training wasn't there, the users just didn't feel comfortable in progressing to the new system. And so it wasn't used. And if it's not used, not going to get a return on investment. So that's really key, key step for there. So, and some of the stuff we did to help with that training is, you know, there's face to face training, there's online training, but we also go through and we do things like build up training videos, training documentation, training cheat sheet, cheat sheets, things like that. We do regular Q&A sessions so that all the users can come into a central spot and just say, hey, look, I've been using this, but I need to question, how do you do something? And so we collaborate and work together to make sure that the system is being utilized and the organization's able to get that return on investment.
Ashley Carmichael 21:06
That sounds really great. And that's often that level of service that organizations need to move forward successfully. So, well done. This might be a bit of a challenging question for you, Michael. But I'm going to use the word typical. And I'm sure there's a really broad range of projects that you work on. But if you could give me an idea, is there anything that is typical in terms of what an implementation might look like, how much it would, sort of, how long it would take, what investment it would require, that sort of thing?
Michael Hopwood 21:56
Yeah, sure. So, okay, I guess probably first thing to understand is that there's two elements. So one is around the software component, one is around the services to get that all up and running. So if we look at the software element, for the stuff which we provide, noting that we've got a range of different software, sometimes it can be as cheap as a couple of bucks per user per month for something like our HRIS or HR system, Zoho people. So really quite cheap type software. But then it ranges up to a couple of hundred dollars per user per month for something like a more sophisticated COM system with Microsoft Dynamics. So we've got everything in between there. One of the things I really like is Zoho's all-inclusive package, they call it Zoho 1, basically provides you 40 or more than 40 different applications for as little as $55 per user per month. And basically that gives you access. That's unfounded. And the technology they provide is just, it's really, really good. And when you get that sort of type of pricing, it's phenomenal. And that gives you CRM, email marketing, social media marketing, event management, website building, reporting, digital forms, digital signatures, surveys, customer service, project management, finance and accounting, HR, recruitment, document management, content management, BI reporting, workflow automation, the list goes on. It's just the amount of stuff that you get for that is phenomenal. And so a lot of our clients do take that package on. They don't necessarily implement everything within that, but there's a roadmap to go through and say, well, how can I best consume that service which I've paid for and got access to? So that's the first part. And that is typically based on a per user fee. So the more people in the organization, the more the higher the software cost is. But then there's the implementation side of things as well. Now, because the tools which we work with are software as a service type applications, they are things which you can actually go through, you can get a subscription for. And if you've got the knowledge and know how you can go and implement yourself and you don't have to have an implementation partner like us actually go and do it. But as you mentioned, there's the success of a lot of implementations comes down to the approach which you take going through this, this sort of implementation of a business system. It's stuff we do all day every day. And so we've seen the battle scars. We know what works. We know it doesn't work. Whereas most of our clients, they might only do this type of thing once every five years. So it's a hard game to sort of understand what to do. Now, our implementations can be as short as a week, you know, and cost as little as five grand for something of a small sort of Zoho type basis to get up and running. Most of the time, our Zoho clients probably will spend more around the 30 grand for the initial type project. Whereas a Dynamics Microsoft Dynamics customer will typically spend around 200,000 for the initial project. And so it's not that the software dictates the implementation fee as such. It's more around the complexity of what's required. And so Zoho has a fantastic capability that it provides. But sometimes there's just a few limitations which are imposed where a Microsoft Dynamics might be required. And therefore when you've got more complexity, it takes a lot of time to actually go and implement and get set up. And so therefore, more time equals more cost. And so that's sort of a big range.
Ashley Carmichael 25:36
Yeah. And so what I'm hearing is it depends on what the scope of that project is, how it's, you know, how big a transformation you're trying to drive through your organization. Obviously, if it's, you know, a really big change or series of changes, then it's going to take a lot to get that right. But it really is, look, we use the word cost a couple of times. And I always try and caution people to think about how they frame their language because it's an investment.
Michael Hopwood 26:20
Absolutely.
Ashley Carmichael 26:21
And, you know, we spoke about it a couple of times about the, you know, the disasters that we've witnessed in the past where implementations have just gone pear shaped. And look, I've seen ones where a lot of money has been spent and the product has never made it into use.
Michael Hopwood 26:40
Yeah.
Ashley Carmichael 26:41
And that's really what this sort of thing is about is that investment upfront to get the job done right so that you've then got a really good system to roll forward with that's going to give you those efficiency dividends.
Michael Hopwood 27:02
Kind of a sense. And I think it's a really good point as well because, you know, although through our initial high level discovery and scope inside of things, we don't go into the nth degree of what the current costs are to do certain business. We are very, very focused on a return on investment. And so there's been a number of times through the years where we're by an organization has come to us and they've said, look, it's we're doing X, Y and Z and it's said, and it's costing us right now, A, and they want us to go and do a certain activity. And we know that in order to achieve that, the investment that they're requiring is B. If we see that the return on investment isn't going to be provided within a reasonable amount of time, we'll provide that advice right straight up front and say, look, although you've asked us to do this, our feeling is that you might not see a return on investment on that within a short enough period of time. And so we would recommend shifting that investment somewhere else. And so it's because there's no point in spending money on having a whizbang system if you're not going to if it's not going to be used, if it's not going to deliver the results that you need. And it's not returning a result back to the business. So, you know, we do definitely consider it an investment and make sure that that return is going to be received.
Ashley Carmichael 28:25
And it sounds like you really do stand back and focus on the end game.
Michael Hopwood 28:30
Absolutely.
Ashley Carmichael 28:31
What's trying to be achieved. And that's something that we see a lot of organizations missing. And they've got ideas about what their problem might be that they're trying to solve and how to solve it. And they just get straight into it. And I think it's really wise to have someone on your team who's standing back and focusing on the bigger picture before getting into the detail.
Michael Hopwood 29:02
Yeah. And we like to partner with our customers. We don't just like to have a transactional type relationship. It's actually, we're really invested in making sure that the business grows and exceeds and meets all of their targets as well.
Ashley Carmichael 29:18
So, And it sounds like once you deliver a project for a client, you don't just disappear. It sounds like you're around to give them ongoing support and enhancements and all that sort of thing.
Michael Hopwood 29:31
Yeah. And we've even got a, what do I call a service and support plan, which is basically sort of going through and it's a commitment, 12 month commitment, but can continue to roll whereby we provide not only reactive type technical support, but also things like minor enhancements, as well as ongoing training and enablement services. And so, nature of every business that there's going to be some sort of staff changes, whether it be new people coming on board because the business is growing, or whether it be someone's left and there's a new replacement for that person. So training becomes a really important thing. And so part of our service and support plans is also about making sure that our clients have access to certified trainers to go through it and really make sure that as soon as that new person comes into the business, that they've got access to the knowledge and know how and can really get running with the system straight away, basically.
Ashley Carmichael 30:28
Okay. Well, that's really informative. Look, I've got a question that's a little bit off the topic we've been on about, but it's certainly something that a lot of people are very interested in at the moment. And it's this hype around chat GPT. Can you tell us a little bit about it and where you see that heading?
Michael Hopwood 30:51
Yeah, it is interesting because, you're right, I mean, it's not a CRM system or an HR system. There is a lot of, I wouldn't call it noise because I think it is actually quite valid. There's a lot of activity out there around what is chat GPT going to do for my business? How is it going to streamline my processes? Does it mean that there is, there's people in my organization, which I either don't need or am I going to be displaced because there is now some sort of magical bot that's out there doing all my work for me? So there's a lot of activity out there and excitement, but also concern at the same time. And so I think for us, we've actually taken this on as two elements. One is sort of looking at us internally and saying, well, what can we do? How can we leverage a tool like this to improve our own business? And so this could be things like, we're utilizing it to help us further develop and enhance our standard operating procedures. We're looking at it for helping us build and deliver marketing content. But we're also looking at it as to ways that we can streamline our documentation that we do for clients. So therefore, if there's certain things which we can leverage from this tool, then that saves us time, which therefore means that we can provide those cost savings and time savings to our clients without compromising the value. It's definitely not at a point whereby you can just ask the question and then deliver exactly what it says. There's an element of fact checking, if you like, of going through and saying, how often is it valid and whatnot? And so it still requires a really good experienced person to make sure that it's being leveraged, but it can take away a lot of the activity which typically could be maybe done by a more junior staff member and streamline in that and doing it really quickly. So we're already seeing some massive productivity gains inside our business. And so then we start talking about, well, how does that actually transfer through to our clients? And so part of it is that both Microsoft and Zoho have started developing integrations in with chatGPT or OpenAI to say, well, how can they leverage from this engine to provide more capability to all of their customers? So things like, for example, what's the next best action to do with a particular client based on the data that's in the system? And then when we go through, one might think might be, well, we should send them an email at this particular point in time, but it's not just about that. It's actually, what's the content that we should actually put in that email? And so what happens is it utilises these OpenAI technologies to say, well, based on this particular person that you're emailing, based on the transactions or the interactions that you've had with that person, what they're interested in, etc. Here's a suggested set of texts that we would recommend you put into your email. And so it pops up on the screen and you can see all of that and then you can still take that as a starting point and then humanise a little bit more and then send that out to their clients. And so that's ways which the vendors are starting to utilise this technology built into the tools as a feature, if you like, which I think is really exciting. But then on top of that, we're also the CCG looking to provide additional education through to our clients around how can you leverage chatGPT, not just through the integrations and the technology that Microsoft and Zoho are doing, but how can you actually utilise it for other sorts of processes? So using ours as a bit of a case study, how can you take this to actually start to build additional marketing content to streamline your strategy and operating procedures and do other forms of documentation? And so this is an area whereby it's what I consider is an adjacent type of technology to what we're doing and really want to assist more organisations cut through some of the noise, if you like, that's out there about it.
Ashley Carmichael 34:57
Yeah, there's certainly a lot of talk about it. And look, I think it's exciting. I mean, I don't believe in the rhetoric that, you know, the machines will replace the humans. But I think it could be an amazing tool that if we learn how to use it the right way, can really transform how we do things.
Michael Hopwood 35:22
Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's about how to use it. And I think we've had Google around for not forever, but for a considerable amount of time. But even if you start watching people around how they use Google, there is definitely an element of certain people get to the end website that they're after a lot quicker than other people. And so there's actually a skill in how you ask your questions and what sort of things you look for. And that's just with a basic Google type thing with chatGPT or other forms of machine learning and open AI type technologies. There's an even more advanced level of skill that you need to ask the right questions in the right way to get the answers back in the most efficient manner. And that's where I think there's a definite human aspect to being able to leverage this technology as best you can.
Ashley Carmichael 36:16
And it seems like there's perhaps a little bit of a race as organisations looked to try and embed this tool in their processes. But as with any race, there's sort of a danger in going too quickly. But also, I think you need to be careful about what you're doing and make sure that if you're going to invest in it, that it's executed well and gives you the benefits at the end. And so I think that's something that organisations need the right help with.
Michael Hopwood 36:54
Yep, yeah, pretty agree.
Ashley Carmichael 36:58
DIY is often not a good idea. We see that all the time. It's very tempting, just in broad terms, organisations, when they're looking at software solutions and systems, yes, we can do it more cheaply if we do it ourselves. But I feel that that's generally a false economy because of either the failed implementation or the really slow and cumbersome implementation prices.
Michael Hopwood 37:34
Absolutely. I think this applies across professional services as a whole in Sky Accountants, so we're really, really happy with using as well. It's that expertise. You've been in training and understanding this stuff for many, many years. And so you know what the right things are to do at the right time. And that's just like what we're providing. We've seen the battle scars. We know what to do, what not to do. And so the investment in getting that professional advice really helps over in the long run streamline that process and ultimately save you money and time.
Ashley Carmichael 38:11
Now, investing in your technology, it's something that you have to do in business these days. It's a must do. I think we all recognise that. And so where I sort of want to finish up this chat today is my belief that you do need to invest. You do need to have good systems and you need to get those systems implemented and supported in the right way. And so I'm a really big believer of getting that professional assistance from the likes of yourself, Michael. And so what I wanted to say to those who are listening or watching today is that if you're looking at doing a bit of digital transformation in your business, I think they should talk to you for a start. But how do they reach out, Michael? How do they get in touch?
Michael Hopwood 39:17
Yeah. So look and visit our website, www.customerconsulting.com.au, look us up on the LinkedIn at customer consulting or also myself, Michael Hopwood . You can also send me an email mhopwood@customerconsulting.com.au.
Ashley Carmichael 39:35
Excellent. Well, thanks for sharing your time with us today, Michael. I found that incredibly informative and got me thinking about all sorts of things for our business and for those that we work with. So I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your expertise.
Michael Hopwood 39:54
No worries at all, Ashley. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
Ashley Carmichael 39:58
Thank you.