Adrian Pearson pinged me yesterday asking if I have any data points into UK attitudes towards the profession following this piece from Rick Telberg where he quotes:
“If we think the pipeline for future professionals is small, the pool of future clients is miniscule,” says Jim Boomer of Boomer consulting. “Just as the next generation of workers will require new strategies, so too will the next generation of clients.”
The analysis is based upon some Thompson Reuters research that suggests Gen X and Millenials together comprise 6% of clients while representing 58% of the workforce. The interpretation suggests that Millenials in particular are less likely to use professional firms than would have been the case in the past. This is largely predicated upon the idea that growing up with technology allows this group to sidestep many traditional accounting services.
This feels intuitively correct though I have not seen any UK data to suggest whether this is a trend that is reflected over on this side of The Pond. I suspect the answer is probably ‘yes’ or ‘sort of’ especially given the profile of customer I see using SaaS/cloud solutions plus the similarities between what’s happening in the US and UK professional landscape. At least at this stage of the game. More interesting though are the comments to Rick’s post. In particular, Jason M Blumer CPA who said:
Our industry needs to wake up – we HAVE to start doing things differently. We will be serving New Generation clients with New Generation staff. Demographics tells us so.
The demographical data at the beginning of the post is great. Within the next 5 to 10 years the “% of client base” category is going to swing heavily toward the Generation X and Millennials. And it won’t be gradual.
Baby boomers will retire in huge numbers over night, and Gen X and Millennials will begin to own businesses (it’s already happening with the Gen X). It just makes sense.
If we aren’t preparing now, then we will be shocked as to what our Millennial clients require of us!
Will it though? I like to think of the FreeAgent example which includes tax calculations as standard. If I can get my taxes pretty much done through software and government is requiring me to file online then do I really need a professional for compliance services? The standard response is that clients don’t know how to keep books, mess things up, make silly mistakes and the like. FreeAgent attempts to remove some of that pain by doing two things:
- The system learns as customers enter data
- The company provides solid tax tips
The first component can still go horribly wrong. Here I’d argue that early consultation with a professional will help minimize mistakes. Alternatively, a ‘watching brief’ will achieve the same thing. On the second, FreeAgent is not providing advisory services but pointing the way while cementing relationships with customers. They could extend this to take the professional right out of the picture though I don’t see that happening any time soon given the IRIS connection.
More research is needed and in that regard I have been talking to Rick about getting a better understanding of transformational benefits observed within the profession from SaaS/cloud. More on that in another post.
