For mid-tier and smaller accounting firms, digital technologies offer many opportunities to innovate, enhance client service and drive efficiencies. But it is often difficult to know where to start, how to select a technology, and how to ensure successful adoption. The Technology in Professional Services (TiPS) Innovation Adoption Accelerator is a centre of expertise and support for digital adoption in mid-tier and smaller law and accounting firms, available for any accountant or accounting firm to access.
Direct support
The core TiPS activity is to help firms to adopt technology, by providing various forms of training and support, tailored to the level of readiness and ambition of individual firms. Cohorts of firms are already engaged in programmes of Proof-of-Concept and Strategic acceleration. Projects in these programmes include application of industry-specific AI-based software for assimilating disparate documents in commercial property transactions, and strategic adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot. These programmes are full, but places are still available until mid-2025 for free, Foundational acceleration, involving training and support to use readily available technologies such as Microsoft 365 tools. Firms in early cohorts learned to use tools like Microsoft 365 Power Automate to automate processes such as:
- the creation and internal distribution of risk assessment documents;
- the collation of documents for tax returns, with an estimated reduction of 50-65% of time spent per document with 95% accuracy;
- the issuing of targeted alerts from a pooled email inbox.
In some cases, the opportunity to understand the potential of the technology stimulated business leaders to kick off more wide-ranging initiatives on the strategic role of technology within their firms. See tipsaccelerator.co.uk to apply for Foundational acceleration.
The TiPS community
Firms may also become part of the TiPS community, participate in events and activities, and hear first about our insights and outputs. We will be running our second Festival of Technology Adoption, in early 2025. Visit tipsacclerator.co.uk to contact us and be notified about the dates for the Festival and other upcoming events.
Sector insight and advice
Through advisory and research work, TiPS is generating insights into technology adoption in professional services and working with sector stakeholders to make technology adoption easier. For example, we find over and over again that the challenges of adoption are usually organisational rather than technological: we are working on tools and frameworks to help firms diagnose their readiness for adoption, work out what business problem or opportunity they want to tackle, and then bring the organisation along with the adoption process in a way that makes it ‘stick’. Visit our website to access news, reports and other insights to help you with your own adoption challenges.
Meet the TiPS team on stand T14 at Accountex Summit Manchester, taking place at Manchester Central on the 17 September.
