Why bother?

I keep getting asked why I’m so interested in blogs and the web.  The answer is simple – it’s a goldmine of information for SME’s.  It’s so up-to-date with new ideas it hurts (Accmanpro, Business Two Zero).  It can give you detailed insights into other peoples businesses and how they are coping (The Soap Blog).  It’s cross continent (Small and medium thoughts).  The detail, relevance and diversity are truly amazing.

Contrast this with my daily newspaper - one page out of sixteen in the business section on SME’s.  Even better it’s on the old chestnut factoring!

Blogs and the web have really made me think about the future of SME’s and in particular changing business models.  If you think that the last 7 years have seen some big changes with email and computers then brace yourself for the next 7.  We are going to see geographical restrictions being removed and the automation of processes in ways we never thought possible.

Philip Woodgate

Technorati Tags: small business  medium sized business  sme  smb  blogging accountants

Comments

[dahowlett]

Here's another reason Philip - your 2010 graduate intake will be bringing with it their own social networks. Those networks will be more valuable than individual educational credentials. But there's a flip side. When these grads turn up at your competitors and find they DON'T engage with the communities they serve, I know the choices they will make. These grads will be the leaders of tomorrow and will challenge the partners in ways we cant start to imagine from this vantage point.

More important, those same grads will be your firm's competitive advantage. Because by that time, I can envisage the emergence of new technologies that change the role of the CA. Double entry book-keeping may not even be a required taught subject if the technologies really do take a lot of the pain away.

Be prepared to cream your competitors by having the cream of the crop at your disposal.

[Philip Woodgate]

It's certainly an exciting time to be involved in and with SME's.

Where I work we take great care in getting and retaining high quality individuals. A strong team is an important whatever the era. Looking at our web stats we get a lot of people looking at our web page just for recruitment purposes. So a good website is important to us for both attracting quality individuals and clients. On these grounds our current site undersells what we are about, but we'll fix that in the next month.