The Unstoppable Accountant - Grow your Accounting Firm

Building Trust and Delivering Quality: What International Firms Seek in Indian Chartered Accountants

• Arun Mehra

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Ever wondered what international firms truly value in their collaborations with Indian chartered accountants? Join us as we uncover the critical elements international businesses seek, drawing from my experience managing a CA firm in the UK. The episode promises to impart insights into building trust and honesty through referrals, a strong online presence, and consistent quality delivery. Discover why Western firms are more inclined to prioritize quality and efficiency over simply opting for the cheapest service, and how investing in higher wages can attract top talent, leading to superior work outcomes and robust client relationships.

Effective communication emerges as a recurring theme, a challenge that many offshoring firms grapple with. We explore how mastering this aspect can significantly boost client satisfaction and trust. A welcoming and approachable team is essential, and we underscore the significance of having stable, motivated, and well-compensated staff to ensure high-quality service delivery. Although cost-effectiveness remains a consideration, the focus should rest on fair pricing within the market context. Despite an unusually quiet day, the discussion is packed with valuable insights for Indian CA firms eager to collaborate with international partners. Reach out with questions as we dive into these themes and more.

Speaker 1:

Right, good afternoon everybody and welcome to this webinar, and this is part of my autumn series of webinars which I'm doing kind of aimed predominantly at the Indian accountants and Indian CA firms. And today's topic is an interesting one. It's all about what do international firms want from Indian chartered accountants. So what do they want? Now I've been, I'm based here in the UK, in London, and I run my own CA accountancy firm here and I said I can wear my hat with that kind of view on. My viewpoint will come from that kind of angle and my thought process is very clear and I'm going to keep this webinar relatively short, maybe 10 to 15 minutes, because I know everyone's very busy at this time of year. But international firms now me as an accountant sitting here, if I was using a third-party firm which I have in the past I've used other offshoring and outsourcing firms in the past the most important thing I want is honesty and trust. Now, how do I find that trust? How do I find that individual? How do I know that the accounting firm or the offshoring firm is going to do a good job for me? Well, first indication will be maybe an introduction or a referral from someone else, or I might check out their website or I might see their content online, um, like videos or articles that they've written. All of that helps me build a picture because I want to know that I I trust them with the valuable data and information I'm sending across. So, really, really important thing is they want to know that they can trust your firm, trust your CA firm. Then I suppose the other really important point is they want to make sure and this ties in with trust they want to make sure that you can actually deliver on the work that you're suggesting that you can do. Now the real danger is that people will say, yeah, I can do the work, and say I'll do it and get the work done, but then, when it comes to reality, they don't have the manpower or the infrastructure to deliver the work in a timely manner and get it done properly. So very, very important you look at that and kind of make sure that you can deliver the work, because otherwise, if you can't deliver the work, it'll be a um. I suppose.

Speaker 1:

The other thing then, people and this is this is perhaps a perception of people in india as opposed to the people in the uk, us and other places of course everyone wants to get a good deal. Of course, what everyone wants to get a lower price. That goes probably hand in hand. But what people want here in the, in the west, certainly in the international clients one, they don't necessarily want the cheapest, they just want to make sure that the job is done well and it's done quickly and efficiently. So if that means the price is higher, they'll probably happily pay it, and that's the big differentiation.

Speaker 1:

I think they appreciate that to do a good job takes hiring good people, which takes paying people fair and reasonable wages and wages and salaries. You only attract the best talent if you can pay for the best talent and get the right talent, and I think that's something that people miss quite often in India. So I'd really strongly encourage you to start thinking about, rather than paying for the lowest cost, actually paying for staff members who are really good, because if you pay for really good staff members or team members, they who are really good, because if you pay for really good staff members or team members, they'll deliver really good work okay, and therefore the client will be happy, and then the client will refer and you'll get more work. So you've got to invert the messaging and invert the story. Um, you want the best talent, so you need to make sure you hire the best talent and therefore you deliver the best job, and there you get more for get more referrals, um I guess. In addition, another area which is really important is that your team are approachable, they're friendly, they're um happy to have a chat about the football or cricket online. Um, it's just welcoming and and now a lot of the work is done remotely via teams or zoom or whatever it might be, but at some point in the future you might actually visit them or they might visit you and they want to feel that they're welcomed and that um they that. That's a large part of building that trust. So I think that's a really important element in this whole kind of um process is that your team are friendly, approachable and ultimately have a great attitude not a good attitude, but a great attitude. So they're always willing to help, always willing to get their um teeth stuck in and always willing to to deliver um a quality service and a quality product.

Speaker 1:

Um, I think they also want to and I get this goes back to whole point If you hire the right people and have the right team members, you'll have to pay them well, and I think a really big, important aspect here from the West is that people want to make sure that the team they've got in India or wherever are being remunerated well, being paid well and their kind of competitive salaries in the local, in the marketplace. The last thing they want to do is see that their team members are unhappy because they haven't got the right salary, the right pay, because if they're getting the right pay, then they'll be sure that the team will be stable. If the team is stable, they'll get a better result and they'll get ultimately a better quality product as well. So all of these things really really matter in the scheme of things and I would encourage you to really kind of focus on that. But if I had to look at one of the big areas and we've kind of covered honesty, we've kind of covered pricing, we've kind of covered capability and attitude of the people and the friendliness of people and that the team are treated well.

Speaker 1:

But one thing that 99 of offshoring firms get wrong and this is where I think the, an international firm, would really want right is the communication. Um, it doesn't matter. If you have an accent, that's irrelevant, okay, it's about the communication. A communication accent is only a tiny bit of it. The real communication is all about the rapport and the um, the delivery on time and the soft skills that your team display the listening skills, the leadership skills, the people skills. And that's what they want to know that you can communicate well with them. They can communicate easily with you and you can take feedback. They can take feedback with you and you can take feedback. They can take feedback and you work as a team.

Speaker 1:

Now you might be thousands of miles away, sitting in India, and they may be over here, but what they want is that open communication. They can pick up the phone or pick, do it, do your team score and question things, ask questions and get things done. I think that's a really important element of this whole thing that you have to get right, because I've seen too many Indian offshoring firms get this completely wrong, excuse me. So really, really focus on that side of things, the communication, because that will stand you out amongst other firms, other organizations trying to do this and, as my firm, we focus on communication. I think that's our primary focus, so that that we deliver, we do things on time and and when I say communication, it's not just written communication, it's verbal communication, it's online communication, it's body language communication, it's the tone of voice communication, um, it's the what you say communication.

Speaker 1:

All of these things matter and I think that's an it really an area that, um, what international firms want. Because that's well, that will, because if you get the communication right what I said right at the beginning that honesty and trust will come. Because if you can communicate well between each other, trust gets easier to build and trust gets stronger. And remember we are in the trust game, we are selling trust and if we can communicate better, the perception of our trust will improve and then the client will be happy. So kind of run through a bunch of points here. These are the things I personally feel that international firms want.

Speaker 1:

Feel that international firms want Trust and honesty, great, great communication, team members that are stable and who have great communication, who are friendly and hungry and who are remunerated well and, ultimately, good delivery, okay, and a fair price. It doesn't necessarily have to be the cheapest, just a fair price in the scheme of things. Necessarily have to be the cheapest, just a fair price in the scheme of things. So kept it very brief eight, nine minute kind of kind of monologue of me talking. Um, if there's anyone who's got any questions on this topic, by all means please do um raise them today or drop me a message happy to to discuss these types of things. Um, but uh, I'm going to keep this short today because I know it's a, it's an odd day today, not many people are working on this, on this area today. But thank you so much and, uh, if you've got any questions, just give me a shout right now. If not, um, I will leave you to it. Thanks very much, thank you.