Future Proof your Accountancy Firm

In this podcast recording from a live webinar, the Samera team explore all the issues facing accountancy firms and how to deal with them all.

Transcript

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our

webinar on Future Proofing, your accountancy

firm today backed by popular demands.

I'm joined by Arun Mehra and

also our international accounts team.

So we have Pankaj in India and

we have Gagan joining us from London. Hello, everyone.

Hey, Chris. How you doing? You're right?

Yeah, not bad at all. It's good to have you all

here and back despite popular demands.

I'm Chris O'Shea, Head of Digital Marketing at Samara.

Right, so let's get straight into it.

So what's going on?

What's happening in accountancy at the moment?

How are things changing?

What's the landscape looking like?

Sure, let me answer that, Chris, with

my kind of grey hair of experience. Okay.

I've been running a firm for 20 years and

I've never seen things change in this accountancy industry

so quickly, so rapidly over the last 20 years.

And I think in the last four or five

years, things are rapidly changing even further in the

UK, US, Australia, Canada, these types of places.

What we're seeing is the need for

more and more compliance work happening.

Therefore, if you have more work to be

done, you need more and more accountants.

But a massive issue is there's such a

lack of resource in kind of Western economies,

mainly due to an ageing population, but also

due to people not entering the accountancy industry.

So that's led to many, many firms struggling.

So we see the large firms taking

a lot of the people on.

So the PWCs, the Ernst Young, those

parts taking lots of people, but then

the smaller firms really struggle to hire.

So what we're seeing now is a

change in how things are run.

We've seen kind of accountancy firms now over the last

few years have been outsourcing and offshoring, and we've been

doing that almost 20 years in different guises.

But now I think this is

kind of becoming the accepted norm.

In addition, technology is changing at a rapid pace,

with AI now kind of leading the way.

And before AI was even a thing in the

last few months, it seems to have gone crazy.

AI was already integrated into much of the

software that's out there, things like Xero and

Hubdoc and Sage and these types of things.

There is AI already in there.

But I think now AI is a

really big point issue going forward.

Okay, so lots of change,

but with change comes opportunity.

And I think it's an exciting time to

be in accountancy, but you have to be

ready to be adapt and to be flexible.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, absolutely.

I can agree with you.

I think the speed at which the technology

has changed over the last decade is phenomenal.

And especially how we see all of these apps

being integrated into basic software that allows us to

do sort of bookkeeping or accounts in all sort

of parts of accountsy fields is amazing.

And I think if you don't keep on top

of the change in technology and don't modernise your

systems and your processes, then you sort of fall

behind the competition in the industry.

It's very important to be on top of it.

And I think you really touched on a very

important aspect that really has become very prominent over

the last few years is the lack of resource,

lack of skilled resource, especially in the UK.

And we've seen that not just in

accountancy, we've seen that across all industries.

So that's heavily know, starting from a small

one man band to sort of large multi

corporations, they're all being affected by this.

So I think with the change in technology and the

issues with the resource and the compliance burden we have

in UK, I think we are now seeing a rise

in people looking at alternatives to these know, we're not

following the same approach that we had sort of few

years ago and now we're reinventing the wheel to some

extent, to be fair.

Panka, do your thoughts on this?

Yeah, so as we need to be updated, so

we need to hire our young and talented resources

and for that India is the best hub.

So we are doing our hiring and

training and we are making staff development.

It is very useful.

So let's hope for the best.

Absolutely, absolutely cool. Yeah.

So we've talked about accountancy

firms themselves being affected.

Would I be right then in thinking that

other small to medium enterprises, say dental Practise

or anything that isn't an accountancy firm, are

they seeing less and less in house accountancy? Yeah.

So if you look at a large, let's

say, let's say you look at a finance

function of an organisation, any larger business, they're

struggling to hire people just like we are,

I guess, because there's just not enough resource.

So if you had a team of ten

now increasingly some of these finance firms or

finance departments of these large corporations are outsourcing.

So if you talk about I met with a friend the

other day and he works for a very large Swiss group

that sells chocolate, which you probably have heard of, okay?

Things like Kit Kat and stuff

like that and their operation.

He's here in the UK, but he says all

our finance department, most of it is run out

of three or four other locations across the world. Okay.

I think he mentioned India as one

of them, Indonesia as another one and

somewhere else, or Philippines as well.

So the large corporates have probably been doing it for

a number of years because they can see the benefit,

the staff, the costs are lower capable people.

But now it's coming ubiquitous.

I think even small to medium sized enterprises

need to do that, but it's much harder

when you're a small business to do that.

Therefore you need partners to help you to achieve

the same goals that these large corporates have.

Do you think it might be the end of

in house accountancy in small to medium businesses.

I don't think it'll be the end. Okay.

I think you still need good

think, and that's the point.

I think the issue that we have, I think,

here in the UK is finding good people.

There are certainly some very good people, but all businesses

need good people and therefore sometimes you have to look

further afield, say, well, I've got some good people in

the UK, but I want to find good people.

And they may well be in India, they may well

be somewhere else in the world to support my business.

Because as a business owner,

you've got to think globally.

You cannot think just get hiring the local bookkeeper

and hiring the local accountant in my team.

You might not just find anyone. Right?

So if they're going to compete smaller

businesses, they're pretty much going to have

to look into outsourcing, offshoring for accounting

in some shape or form, I think.

So, Goggin, what do you think?

What do you think?

Yeah, I think you're Chris. You're right.

I think in order to be competitive, in order

to grow, in order to run a business effectively

and efficiently, you do need to look at the

changing world around you and change with it.

And like Aaron mentioned already, large corporations have

been doing it for a number of years

and I think upsourcing has existed for over

a decade and it's been very effectively used.

But it is very easy to get it

wrong if you don't have the right experience.

And when you do have the right

experience, it can work like a dream.

And I know from experience and talking to

colleagues who've tried offshoring and outsourcing before and

things haven't gone in the right direction for

them, it's because it could be the circumstances,

it could be the partner.

For one reason or another, they've

not had great success with it.

And I think with the change in

technology and the development in technology now,

there's a lot more opportunity.

And as this grows, it's growing at such

a pace that if you don't join this

particular I don't necessarily want to call it

trend, but I think it's a business strategy.

If you don't join this business strategy, if you

don't embrace the change, if you don't embrace the

change in technology and what is happening, you'll sort

of realise in somewhere down the line that you've

missed out on that opportunity.

And it gets harder and harder because

the world keeps moving forward every day,

every minute, as the industry changes.

So I think you will see a lot of

change in the next five to ten years, significantly.

But it's now more accessible to smaller

businesses than it was before, largely because

to the development of the technology.

And if you have the right partner, it makes

it easier and it does actually become fruitful.

Whereas if you don't have the right partner,

or if you don't have the right experience,

it can very easily go the wrong way.

So that's really the thing to think about.

Punkage, have you got any thoughts on that as well?

I think Gogan covered it all. Good. Brilliant.

So who's going to win?

Out of all mean, it seems mean

offshore Accounts is going to win.

Is this going to make it

easier for small to medium businesses?

Are they going to see problems with this

or is it going to essentially take the

worry off their hands in house?

If you looked at it from the point of accountancy firms

in the UK, this is a market I know well.

I've been running a firm for the last 20 years and

I know how it got increasingly difficult to hire good people

here in the UK at an affordable rate of quality.

And personally, I think the winners will be those

who do embrace changes Guggen mentioned, who are involving

and using technology to the best of their benefit,

but also those who also embrace the offshore model.

Now, when I say offshore model, outsourced model, you

still need good people here in your team here

in the UK, there's no doubt about that.

I'm not questioning that at all.

But a lot of the routine jobs, routine activity, can

be offshored, which can save time, which can save cost,

and therefore the team in the UK can then start

working on other added value services, such as tax planning

or business advisory or whatever it might be.

So the winners, in my mind, are the

ones who are embracing change, embracing offshoring, embracing

technology and AI and all of these things.

They're going to be the winners.

I think we're in an era and also in

an industry that if you do stagnate, as Guggen

quite clearly said, if you stagnate, you're dead in

the dishwaters, they say you're dead.

So you have to change, you have to evolve.

You mentioned that some jobs will still be able to

be done in house, some will have to be offshored.

What kind of things do you think will need

to be offshored if you want to grow competitively?

Guggen, what do you think you're on the operations

side particularly, so, you know, more than on an

operational point of view, I think it really sort

of depends on your business model.

But largely, I would say that typically what we've

seen that works quite well is having client relationship

managers here for a number of reasons.

Whether there's a cultural gap, whether there's a

timing issue, whether it's that ability or proximity.

To go see the client and build that relationship,

and to provide an outstanding service to a client,

you really need to understand their business.

And again, proximity is an element of that.

So to be able to go see a client, to

sit face to face, to have that human interaction, to

be able to discuss the issues they're facing, not just

from an accounting point of view, from a business operations

point of view where they don't have somebody else they

can speak to on that front.

And that's typically what we find is that businesses

don't necessarily have the resources to have a full

time, for example, financial Director on board, but they

do need those expertise from time to time.

It could be you just need them once a

month or twice a month, but you need that

input, whether it's from a tax point of view,

from a business structure point of view.

So I find that the roles that really sort

of work well in UK are the ones where

you have that relationship management element, CRM element, and

the other compliance work largely, which is bookkeeping accounts

or anything that can be done remotely, whether mostly

administrative tasks that don't require constant interaction or physical

meetings, then those can be done very well, provided

we have got good systems and processes surrounding that

particular element of it.

And there's good communication across borders

that works quite well in India.

And they're very capable and intelligent workforce

in India that are very technically astute

and they can deliver great results.

And again, that comes back to being able to provide

that service at a cost effective model so that you

can then do more added value work here in UK.

And that's a win win for everybody.

Offshoring wins, the clients win because you're able to then

charge a reasonable fee for the work that you're doing,

and you also win because of the lower cost.

It sort of adds to the bottom line on your end.

So it works as a win win for everybody.

But getting those key roles right is very

crucial at the start of the relationship.

Agree.

Okay, so it sounds like in house accountants

might need to not necessarily develop the role,

but account management skills are going to become

much more important, as opposed to just financial

management skills, like you said, being that bridge

between the offshore and the in house.

Yeah, correct, very much.

That's going to be an interesting development.

Yeah, very much so.

Very much so.

How else do you reckon small businesses and

council firms can grow and compete competitively?

Is it essentially just embracing the change, not

holding back from it, getting ahead of the

curve and bringing in the right knowledge?

I think that's certainly that go on.

Yeah, I definitely think that it's

not just about embracing the changes.

I mean, there's an element of understanding how to

actually implement that change in your operations, in your

business, to incorporate that in your strategy, to structure

it properly so that it's not something that it's

not just an idea that we're implementing.

It's having a thoughtful, planned strategical

action behind it and then monitoring

it and then growing with it. Really.

It's something that sort of grows with you, because when

you implement a change and this is a big change

for any firm, whether small or large, and it requires

a lot of careful planning from an operations point.

Of view from clients point of view from your

point of view to manage know compliance work is

really at the heart of all of this.

You cannot miss a hard deadline, for example, with

HMRC and you'll have soft deadlines with clients who

would want their work done on time, early.

So having that sort of strategical planning would help

to make sure there's minimum disruption to business, minimum

disruption to the team members, to the existing team

members, to the management, to the systems.

Because then there's an element of incorporating systems here

and abroad and doing that right would make it

easier and there'll be less change resistance in the

early stage and make it more successful later on.

So I think having that is a very important

aspect of actually putting it in action, not just

knowing it that this is how you do it,

but the detailed action plan behind it.

Sorry, Aaron.

No, I interrupted your apologies.

No, that's fine.

I kind of echo exactly what you're saying.

I think it's so important change has to be

at the heart of everything that you're doing.

But one of the other things to differentiate yourself is

if you're offshoring much of the kind of compliance related

work that gives you as a firm an opportunity to

look at other areas in your business.

Okay, what else can I do?

Is there tax planning work I could do?

Or maybe I want to become a specialist in

a particular sector or maybe I want to focus

on more the commercial finance side of things.

I help clients raise finance and get business plans

and do startups and that type of thing.

So there's so many angles.

But at the core of any accountancy firm

is a compliance that is at the core.

That is the heart of it.

And that's what most clients are expecting for you to

be able to do the compliance, the payroll, the accounts,

the tax returns and do that with your eyes shut.

We all know it's not that easy, but it all

can be outsourced, it all can be offshored, it all

can be done by more than capable people overseas to

support your business as an accountancy firm for you then

to look at other angles which perhaps you can generate

greater revenue from as well.

That's some really good points there.

And Pankaj, I wanted to ask you so you're out

in India helping to head up the international accounts team.

We've there's.

There's not necessarily a death of account C over

here, but there's certainly a dearth of account C.

Why is India becoming such a go

to market for these kind of resources?

Yeah, so the only reason is we have a

pool of talented individuals and they are young and

they are energetic and obviously they are just freshers.

They are ACCA qualified CAS MBAs, so they are not asking

for money, they are asking for experience, and they do their

jobs very so I think India is the main hub right

now, and it will be increasing day by day.

And not only UK, US and Canada and Australia.

They're also relying on Indian talented, I think.

So India is the best place, right? Yeah, yeah.

If I can put that into some other points

to add there, Chris, I think a large point.

English speaking.

Okay, so people speak English, they

talk from a young age English.

So that's very helpful.

From a time zone point of view, it's a four

and a half to five and a half hour, depending

on what time of year you're talking about.

Time difference.

But increasingly, many of the firms in India,

many of the people on the team, work

UK hours, which is a huge thing.

So anyone that you have on your offshore team

over there, it's effective extension of your team.

So what we're seeing, and this is what I predict

going forward, is people might be working from home, increasingly

here in the UK or US and everything, but if

they're not going to the office, other companies will start

thinking, well, actually, why am I paying UK salaries when

I can get someone in India at a lower salary?

And they're effectively working the same

hour sitting in the office?

And that's an accountancy that's across all industries.

Okay, so I think that's another issue.

And I think bottom line, though, is

the volume of people in India.

That's the bottom line.

The UK population is around 60 to 70 million people.

Population of India is 1.5 billion people.

So the UK population is 4% of the India population.

Now, not everyone in India can be an accountant.

Not everyone's skilled up and speaks English.

Not everyone does that.

But there is the population, probably about four

to 500 million people in that country who

are young, hungry, energetic, learning skills.

And it might not be in accountancy.

It could be in it, it could be in

law, it could be in other professional services.

So I think this is a general shift

in professional services happening across the board.

And what we're seeing just recently, the

Indian government announced the opening of the

whole legal sector in India.

So what we're going to see is a whole load of

legal work increasingly going from law firms here to India, I

think, over the next few years, because that was a big

barrier for the law firms here to do it.

But I think that will change things as well.

Accountancy is ahead of the curve in that, but we're still

in its infancy, so I think it's an exciting time.

And for anyone who has never been to

you'll, I just came back last month and

met Bankerj and Gunjan and other team members.

But for anyone who hasn't been, and I've been

going to India since I was very little boy,

on a regular basis, india is happening right now.

It's not going to happen in ten years.

It's not going to happen in 20 years.

It's going to happen now.

And the next 20 years, personally,

I think, is what we saw.

China, what happened in China over

the last 20 to 25 years.

India is at that stage now

where it's about to take off.

Okay, there are challenges, there are

political issues, there are other things.

But underpinning India, underpinning are its

capable people and who speak English.

So China cannot do this because they

don't speak English or a large proportion

of the population that's being English.

They've been very good at manufacturing, but I think

even manufacturing will be shifting to India as well.

From China, as we've seen with Apple,

they've moved a large manufacturer operation from

China to Chennai in southern India.

So this is just the beginning.

Just the beginning, absolutely.

Especially when you couple it

with the development of mean.

You talk about the changes in the legal sector.

I was reading a couple of days ago that they're

testing out AI in courtrooms now, and it's now just

starting to be able to beat human lawyers in arguments.

So, yeah, the number of industries that are going

to be hugely affected by shifts in technology and

demographics is scary and exciting at the same time.

It is scary and exciting, but the key here is

that I don't think AI will take away jobs.

It will take away some jobs.

But the key is to have AI trained people in your

team who understand how to get the best out of AI.

So our job as a team, for our

team in India, here and in the UK.

Similarly, is to say, well, you're

an accountant, but you know what?

We need to develop your skills in getting better with

AI and using AI in your day to day job.

And that's a role that everyone has to do.

If you don't do that, if you don't change and adapt,

then again, you're dead in the dishwater or it's done.

A dishwater.

I can never get that saying right.

But anyway, it's one of those something

about water, something about dishes, you're dead

in the water, whatever it is.

But that's kind of what we're seeing in answer.

And India, from a UK standpoint, time zone is great.

Now, I know the Philippines is another massive offshoring

kind of country that's happening, and they seem to

work predominantly for the west coast of the US.

California that side, because of the time zones.

Okay, so time zone does play another part,

and then another country is South Africa as

well, which is happening across the board.

But we know India, as I said, been

going to India many years, know lots of

people there, know how the culture works.

And that's a very important thing.

It's the culture.

How do you navigate through that culture,

understand how the Indian kind of team

members work and what their needs are.

And at the similar time, the Indian team

also need to understand what the requirements are

of UK US Australian clients are as well.

And culture plays a very large part of this as well.

That's a really good point.

So I'm going to ask a couple of questions about

challenges and pitfalls of all this, but just before I

do, we mentioned very briefly local tax regulations.

And do you think it's going to be a while

until AI and outsourcing can really tackle local tax regulations?

I think it's going to happen very soon.

It can do everything. Okay.

AI is so smart, it'll pick up everything.

So the software we've been using over the

years has been pretty good, but now AI

integrated into these software, things will change, I

think, in a nutshell, yeah, I do.

Tax planning might even be yeah, to some extent,

because what will happen that the AI will be

able to scan a tax return somehow and interpret

the numbers and then come out with this opportunity.

That opportunity. This opportunity.

It's like, bingo, here you go, okay.

And I'm sure people are developing software around that

already and I'm no kind of AI expert in

terms of software development, but it's a great idea.

Maybe we should look into that.

Just making a note of that now yeah, is a big element

of this, isn't it, where AI is introduced to sort of be

able for people to sort of pay their tax based on what

the projected tax might be at the end of the A.

That's been a big shift in the accounting industry.

So we can already see this being embraced by

HMRC, we can see this already being embraced by

software companies like Xero or Sage or QuickBooks and

Cashflow or free agent and you name it.

I think there's a lot of development happening.

It's not necessarily at the forefront right now, but

there's a lot of change happening and before you

know it, if you don't keep pace with it,

then you'll be outdated, as they call it. Absolutely.

So what will happen, really?

If you look at how we've worked historically, you

prepared the accounts, you've prepared the tax returns for

an individual and then they pay their tax.

But what we'd want to do before you pay

the tax, what you can do is some type

of AI software would analyse that tax return against

all the tax legislation here in the UK.

And within minutes it'll say, you know what, you

haven't optimised this, you need to do this.

It put some money in this pension, do this

and it'll tell you how much to do this.

It's like, Christ, okay, it's all done.

And then ultimately, you need to sign off an

accountant to sign it off and off you go.

And suddenly, instead of paying a certain

amount of tax, you're paying 30% less.

Because the AI has told you this is the

model and it's in compliance with tax legislation. Okay?

That's where we're heading.

So the key is to understand how to use that technology.

And there will certainly be some winners in this

market in terms of the software side of things.

But those firms that embrace that type of approach

as well will be the winners as well.

That's actually going to raise some really interesting

points with big businesses finding tax loopholes.

If one day we'll have AI telling every Tom, Dick

and Harry, oh, there's this loophole and this loophole that's

been very interesting for tax legislation as well.

Closing loopholes, like they won't be exclusive anymore

to people who can afford the big accountants.

It's said to be open to everyone. Absolutely.

That's going to be a very interesting development.

It will be an interesting wonder.

I just don't know how it's going to evolve.

And if you think about it, this is where A is

going to take us on this little aspect of life.

Okay, imagine on all other aspects

of life how it will change. Exactly.

So let's get into it.

What are the pitfalls and the problems and the

challenges we're going to face with all of this?

It can't all be sunshine.

There are any brilliant. Excellent. Next question.

Okay. What are the challenges?

Punkard, you tell me from your Indian perspective,

what do you think right now, being in

outsourcing industry from the past 1213 years, I've

seen the major challenge initially was communication.

But we have improved a lot on that side.

So communication is not a challenge right now.

Yeah, sometimes there is a challenge of data privacy

and some firms in India and some accountants here,

they don't follow the data privacy practises.

And so this becomes a major also, I mean,

sometimes there's a challenge about the delivery, the turnaround

time they are not able to follow.

But coming again to the point, everything is

improving now and I don't feel offshoring and

outsourcing is a bad idea when it comes

to India because we have improved already.

So nobody's perfect.

Yeah, but yeah, we are going up the ladder, right?

Correct.

Okay, yeah, fair point. Guggen, what do you think the

challenges are with AI in particular?

Yeah, I think the main know in a nutshell, I

think Panka just covered that any change will have its

opportunities and any change will have its challenges.

And it's how you convert those challenges into

opportunities which makes you the winner, effectively.

And yeah, I completely agree.

There's been issues in the past with

outsourcing, whether it's to do with India

or any other part of the world.

And those issues with the change in

technology, as you can see, have started

to eradicate and things are moving forward.

The major issue that people will have in sort of implementing

AI or just general issues with AI is having an understanding

on how to best use it, how to best use it,

where to use it, how it serves a central function.

To their organisation and how we'll help them

do more added value and advisory work specifically

for UK accountants in the UK.

Because effectively, if you're delegating data driven work

through AI and offshoring that to, let's say,

India, then you have that space.

You have that space, thinking wise,

you have that space time wise.

You have that space in terms of cost savings to

be able to think about what else you can provide

to your clients, what other services you can provide, how

you can add more value in order to grow.

So I think having a good understanding of how

to utilise it, along with a good sort of

business strategy would be the key challenge.

And that's why it's important to really understand it at

its early stages, because AI, as we can see, has

developed so much in the last five years.

In the next five years, it'd be a

completely different it'd be a game changer.

Yeah, I think if I could add I think I remember

the days when I started off my firm, what, 2003?

So 20 years ago.

And we started outsourcing very early in those days, but

the technology wasn't as advanced as it is now.

So it was literally I'd had an admin person

in my team and clients would send in all

their paperwork into the office, someone in the post.

Then I'd have a permanent team member standing at

a scanner all day, scanning all the documents.

That would then get put onto an server. Okay?

Then someone in the UK would have a

QuickBooks file and that wasn't on the cloud.

There's no cloud or anything like that.

What would happen is then a little bit of information

would be set up in that QuickBooks file and that

would then be Ftp'd across to India and downloaded on

crappy 56K modem connection over in India.

They would then look all the scan documents, do

their work, and once they'd done it, then they'd

have to send the file back again over an

FTP server to the UK for someone to review.

So that was my kind

of early introduction of offshoring.

Now things have changed, okay, with cloud accounting

and everything else that's going with it.

But bottom line, bottom line, the biggest

challenge is getting the right people.

The right people, whether it's UK team, India

team, and that, to me, is everything.

Because if you have the right people,

your life is so much easier.

And we have people like Bankuj and Gunjan in

India who kind of lead the hiring side of

things and identify the right people with the right

technical skills, but also with the right communication skills

and with the right attitude.

And as we know, attitude is everything.

They might not have all the qualifications or have all

the experience that we want, but if they're keen to

learn and they can be trained, we'll train them up.

Okay?

So we'll train them up, for instance,

to get all their zero qualifications.

We'll train them up to get everything that they

need to do the job, not just satisfactorily, but

to a very high standard to meet our high

standards, which ultimately meet our clients high standards.

It's a good investment. Yeah. Correct. Okay.

So it sounds like the main challenges are

going to be overcome by essentially keeping ahead

of the changes in technology and by building

the right relationships with the right people. Correct.

Yeah.

Essentially, essence of business.

Correct. You're absolutely right.

It is the essence of business. It's all about people.

And technology will evolve and AI will come.

And there'll be something in the

future beyond AI, I'm sure.

But a business is ultimately about people, okay?

Your clients, your team, and managing and looking after that

team, who then do a good job for your clients.

That's what it was all about. Yeah.

Culture beating strategy. Correct.

So, I mean, we've been talking about AI.

Is AI going to make offshoring kind of superfluous?

Because right now, yeah, smaller businesses and account

see, firms might need to outsource so that

people who know what they're doing can take

advantage of the AI technology.

But in 510 years, if it is going

to be a case of upload your accounts

here's my accounts, figure this out for me.

That's a great question, Chris.

I think to some extent, yes. Okay.

But as I said earlier, I think accountants will

need to the good accountancy firms will embrace AI.

So you'll need good people who understand it, who are

at the kind of leading front of this all.

So you'll need people who are trained in AI, who

are trained in accountants, who can do both things.

And therefore those will be the firms that

really dominate the space in my mind.

And I think what will emerge is for the

larger players out there, they might struggle, and too

many opinion makers or partnerships might struggle.

People not making the right decisions

and stuff, they come clunky.

So it's the smaller, lean firms that could

have a real advantage here to be able

to adopt AI, adopt technology, adopt good people

in their firms overseas using offshoring.

I think if you combine the two AI

plus offshoring, as I kind of mentioned earlier,

I think that's your really winning strategy.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think you're right, Aaron.

When we refer to that conversation, regardless to how much

development there is in AI, you'll always need that expert

input from the accountant to be able to cross Cast

and cheque as a quality cheque to say what AI

has told me is correct and I agree with it,

or whether I disagree and whether it needs a change.

So you obviously cannot blindly rely on it,

regardless of how brilliant AI might be.

So I think it does come back to having

that right sort of people in place who are

equally competent in AI and their specialist field in

order to sort of deliver the final output.

That's a very good point.

With outsourcing, obviously you're going to be sending

a lot of financial data around the world

and a lot of sensitive documents.

And I know Pankaju touched on this a moment ago,

how can people be sure their data is going to

be secure and looked after and safe and not breached?

Okay, so if I could answer that, I think

we'd use, obviously all our servers and data centres

and stuff are here in the UK.

Then we comply here in the UK,

we comply with all the GDPR standards.

Then the technology that we use overseas is

all very up to date, compliant, controlled here

by us here in the UK.

And we're just making sure that data protection has to be

at the top of our list to protect our clients.

So there's various standards that we need

to meet, which we do, and obviously

those standards are constantly changing and data

protection laws are changing in the UK.

But I know in India, there's even further data protection

laws have just emerged in the last few weeks and

months, which we're making sure that we're doing.

So security, data protection, personal data, that is

at the heart of what we do. So if we don't get that

right, then we've got a problem.

And like with many other firms,

they have a problem as well.

So, yeah, it's a very important aspect

that has to be addressed by anyone

doing outsourcing, anyone doing anything. Okay?

Yeah, of course, operationally, we've developed over some time

some very robust and secure systems and processes that

help us manage and control the use of that

data, whether that's existing clients or extinct clients, or

any other data that we've gathered.

So having that sort of robust policies in

place, proper training in place for the entire

team, having good systems in place, having good

control processes in place, having good quality cheques

in place, all of that really matters.

And I think that's certainly something that

we've had a heavy focus on even

before we even considered outsourcing.

Okay, and can you touch a little bit on

that point on some of the specific software platforms

that we've been using and how they help?

Essentially, yeah.

So I think we use all the

UK common software that are out there.

So from accounting point of view, we use Xero,

QuickBooks, Sage, Tax, Calc, Payroll, we use BrightPay Moneysoft,

all of these things that are out there.

So our teams are trained in all

of the relevant softwares, wherever they need.

They have a zero, not a

user licence, a zero certification.

Our teams get certified in those types of software

where they need them, and we actively encourage that.

So software is an important aspect as well, and

it's at the heart of what we do to

make the job quicker, faster, better for everybody.

And since everything's on the cloud, it's

easy, it's very easy to do.

Okay, do you think this is going to be?

Because we touched on the changes and

how council firms especially may need to

slim down and change their modus operandi.

Is this going to be profitable for accountsy firms

here, or do you think it's going to be

something they're going to have to overcome and adapt

to and essentially change their outlook?

It's going to be extremely profitable for county firms in the

UK and us if they adopt what we've been talking about,

because what it'll do, it'll free up their time.

And time is the most valuable thing.

The cost of living here in the

UK, for instance, is so high.

But if you can free up your time by passing

on much of the day to day compliance work to

an offshoring firm, that then affords you, if you're running

a firm, to focus on perhaps higher revenue generating aspects

such as tax planning, such as business advisory, such as

whatever you want to do.

And that's when it becomes really profitable. Okay?

Alternatively, you might just say, I just want to

run a compliance and I don't want to do

any of that, and I'll offshore it.

Again, that's just profitable.

But time is the most expensive thing here.

So if you can offshore much of the

kind of day to day operational work to

a capable, experienced, knowledgeable team who are delivering

on time at a decent, affordable rate, then,

yeah, it'll be certainly very profitable.

If I can add to that, Chris, I think not only would

it be profitable, I think it'd be the key to survival.

I think if you're not sort of up to date

with what's happening around you, you'll find that you'll have

outdated systems, you won't have the right pricing structure, you

won't have the right team in place, and you'll struggle

to keep up with the rest of them, and you'll

just get sort of pushed out of the block, really.

So I think not only is it important

for growth and profitability, but I think it's

the key to survival going forward. Good point.

That's a really good point.

So, big question.

How do we do it?

How do firms, small businesses, medium businesses,

how are they going to outsource?

How are we going to survive?

Great question.

I think to kind of highlight.

So there's a few options.

One option is that you're a firm running

in the UK and, you know, I want

to offshore to India or outsource to India.

Now, you could get on a plane and fly

out to India and try and hire a however,

and I'm not saying don't do it, but however,

navigating India at the best of times is challenging.

Okay? As I said, we said

earlier, there's opportunities there.

It's exciting times, there's a lot going on.

But going to a foreign country, understanding their legislation,

dealing with the foreign culture, how things done, how

things are done, it's no easy thing.

And now I'm of a british Asian abstract.

And I go to India and I've got Indian heritage and

I know lots of people in India, lots of contacts, friends,

family, very well to do people that I know out there.

But even they're saying, well, are you

sure that's the right thing to do?

But that's because I've got experience, I know how

to do these things out in India, and I've

got useful contacts and we built a team up.

People like Punkaj, people like Gunjan, people like others

out there, but that takes time, that takes effort.

And you might say, you know what, I want to do that.

If that's the case, absolutely, go for it.

Or the alternative is they say, well, why don't you work

with a firm like ourselves who bridges India to you?

We're not exclusively in okay, we're

not exclusively in the UK.

We work both. Okay?

So we have a team in India, we have

a team in the UK, our UK team.

People like Guggen, like myself, like you, understand the

UK psyche, understand the needs of UK accountants.

We can then help bridge that to get our

team in India to do the work to the

standards, the quality and the deliverability that you require.

So kind of two approaches to this.

But I think the message is that

you want to build a team.

Whichever way path you take.

That is an extension of your

current setup here in the UK.

So they come part of your

team, they're part of your culture.

And I'd like to think the team that we

have in India is definitely part of that.

And they're ready and able to help.

Whether you're a one man banner counselling firm or

a multi partner Practise doted across the UK, we

can do that because we've got everything in place.

We've got the team, we've got the hiring systems in

place, we've got the recruitment processes in place, we've got

the training processes in place, and ultimately we've got the

team that can deliver and do all the work.

So that's kind of my thought process.

Gagan, anything to add on that?

Yeah, and that's taken us years to actually get there.

It's not something that's happened overnight.

We worked incredibly hard to sort of

develop these systems and processes and training

manuals to sort of get it there.

And, yeah, you can sort of get on a plane

and go to the other side, but getting it right

and navigating all of those elements in India is not

necessarily easiest, but also you've got to think about the

impact of your focus being diverted into that.

You don't have the experience, you don't have the knowledge,

or you may have the knowledge and the experience.

And if you've sort of gone through the experience

enough times, you know what not to do.

It's something we touched on, I touched with

Aaron, touched on earlier on in a conversation

with me, that we've seen what you shouldn't

really do and what you should do.

So I think, depending on what sort of stage you

are in the cycle, I think when you're bringing in

a change organisation wide and something for the long term,

it's always better not to jump into it straight away.

And look at sort of the experts in the field get

some advice and guidance to do it right because doing it

wrong can have such a costly can be so costly not

only for you for your business, but also for your clients.

And that can very easily go wrong.

So I think the important thing here is to

embrace the change, but to do it in the

right way, to make sure you have the right

support and guidance on your team, on your side.

Make sure you do it gradually.

Make sure you have a plan so that it

sort of becomes fruitful over a period of time

rather than something that gives instant results.

There's no short term fixes if you want

to do this for the long term. Absolutely.

And if I could kind of add to that, I

think I've got the T shirt of experience here.

We've done it, I've been there, done

that, and I've made every linking mistake.

Trust me, I have.

Okay, I'm just being honest with you.

But we've been doing it 20 years,

so I've made plenty of mistakes in

this process, but from mistakes you learn.

And I'd like to think that we've got a

very robust, solid service and delivery capability now coming

out of India, primarily because of the mistakes that

I've made or that we've made.

Because you'll only know how good you are

once you've actually tried something, once you've made

a mistake, and then you kind of think,

you know, oh, shit, I did that.

Let's rectify that.

Let's make it better.

The decisions come from experience and then

experience come from, unfortunately, a lot of

bad decisions that sort of makes sense.

So it sounds like people need to understand that if

you are going to go down the offshoring routes on

your own, you need to understand that it's not just

hiring a few new accountants in a different country.

You are literally setting up a new business.

And with all the headaches and issues

and problems that come with not 101,000%. Correct.

1000% correct. Yeah.

Right, well, sounds like it's going to be

a very interesting ten years for accounting business.

Absolutely.

Honestly, I'm so excited about what's

happening in the accountancy sector. It's scary.

It's like, oh, my God.

But at the same time, it's like, yeah, very exciting.

For those who embrace this change, for those

who kind of really understand the power and

potential with offshoring and AI coming together and

getting the right people to support you.

It's a very exciting time. Yeah.

And the ludnites are going to be left behind. Correct.

Well, if there's nothing else, any

other points from anyone else?

I think I've asked everything I wanted to ask

I think we've commented you've worn us out, Chris.

Yeah, I feel like I can go set up my own one now. Yeah.

I'll set up a rival accounting firm.

Wonderful.

I hope everyone enjoyed some

of our insights and knowledge.

And this is something I believe we're going

to be doing on a regular basis.

Watch out for our next webinar. Yeah.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us.

And thank you to you three.

That was so informative. Thank you.

I personally like lots and I

hope everyone else did, too. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for everyone joining us. Cheers. Goodbye.