SME Blog

MYOB and 21st century business thinking

MYOB are fascinating example of a business thinking in the 21^st century rather than the last. MYOB are traditionally seen as a provider of business software with strong sector strength in the accounting profession. In the accounting profession they occupy a position of trust. Their name and their products are extremely well known.

Technology has done a great deal to remove geographical restrictions with routine tasks being outsourced away from the UK where costs are far lower. The benefit to the company outsourcing should be reduced cost, the ability to deal with peaks and the ability to specialise in higher level areas. For this to work you need to trust the provider that they can deliver and provide work of high enough quality. MYOB have obviously given this some serious thought because they now not only supply business software they also provide an outsourcing service to their clients.

In short they have:

I recently met MYOB's David Clough who is leading the charge. David is very knowledgeable and a quick preview indicates that much thought and time has been given to making the service work well for their clients.

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New media

Media and technology make for an exhilarating mix.  The new media has allowed companies and organisations to engage with their customers in new ways.  Business sectors known to be traditionally conservative now have blogs and podcasts.

The technology used does not replace the age old media requirement for good content.  A good demonstration of the importance of content can be found by considering the BBC.  The BBC uses technology as the tool with which to deliver its content.  The BBC website provides more than just news it also provides online radio, video and podcasts.  Recently it was given the green light to put television content online by the Trustees. The BBC has an awesome archive of content and the potential revenue streams that could be generated in the future from this new media property are enormous.   

The SME doesn’t have the BBC’s content (or web hits), but it still needs good content to attract its  target audience of customers and potential customers.  That may sound obvious, but how many website projects concentrate on graphics, layout and the technicalities of how to load content without much thought to the content itself?  Very often the content is the customer’s job.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the customer may be an excellent distributor (say), but is not such a wonderful writer.

Writing good content is hard work even with professional help.  Why bother?  Isn’t the cost of writing the content greater than the benefit?  Absolutely not!  Writing good content for SME’s is about finding out what customers value and care about.  Anytime spent understanding your customer and demonstrating the fact is always going to be time well spent.

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Reading ease

The Flesch Reading Ease test is designed to indicate how difficult a reading passage is to understand.  Higher scores indicate material that is easier to read; lower numbers mark harder-to-read passages.

I did some quick tests and found that a typical informal blog has a score of about 50 to 60, BusinessWeek scores from 40 to 50 and The Times 35 to 45. 

You can try it for yourself with a reading ease calculator at Online Utility. More importantly test it on your writing and get an online score on how easy it is to read.

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Networking & ads

We're still getting some great weather in the UK.  Last night I had the pleasure to be at event in aid of breast cancer.  As well as a good cause the organisers (those friendly London based Lloyds corporate and business banking people) got their event just right.  We were outside in the sunshine at historic Chandos House drinking a selection of fine cask conditioned British Ales they had transported in. The time flew by.

All this put me in mind of a rather clever article in BusinessWeek comparing networking events to advertising. It's a good article as it uses simple comparisons between networking and advertising to get some very good points across.  For example:

"It's a cliché, but it's true: Most of what we need to know for successful social interaction we learned in kindergarten. In the same way, most of what makes an ad successful can be gauged by whether it passes the cocktail-party test. It's easy to get attention by shouting, jumping up and down, or otherwise acting inappropriately. But that's not the kind of attention you want."

Getting the message across whilst keeping it simple is something that is not easy to do, but it's something I've noticed David Koopmans in Business of marketing and branding does well.

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Appearances count

Appearances count and don’t large companies know it.  Just look at how much time they invest in the company image and brands.  What can the SME do in this area? 

One of the key advantages of a SME over large companies is the personal touch.  If you are in daily contact with your customers/clients then how you come across is very important; it’s not just being good at the technical stuff.  A big factor in this is your body language.  Check out these slides for some quick tips.  It’s a case of small things, but they all add up.

If you are pitching then take a look at this and get some tips from Apple’s Steve Jobs. It goes to show that there is some great free advice on the internet.

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What do you want?

What if SME's used large company technology like FedEX and Amazon to provide better customer service?  I got thinking about this after reading a post at AccMan Pro.

Recently I bought a great table from a SME.  It's a fantastic bit of furniture and one of my favourite parts of the week is sitting at it at the weekend and eating "cakies" with the twins.  The only problem was when we ordered it we only had a vague idea when it would arrive.  With my book from Amazon I can track it on the internet and watch its progress.  I'm not too bothered about the book, but I really wanted to know when the table would arrive.

So my thought was SME's should provide large company customer service using the inexpensive second generation internet technology (see phenomenon ).  Add this to the small company personal touch and that looks like a winning formula to me.

It then struck me that as an SME we could do something similar at my firm.  Accountants are often getting criticised by clients for not knowing when the accounts they prepare will be delivered.  If we had a secure web based system then you could look to see what status the accounts were at and when they were expected to be due.  We could also have an area where you leave messages or answer queries. 

Anyone out there think that's it's a good idea for Chartered Accountants to use Amazon like technology?  Or would you prefer the more formal walnut walls in boardrooms type traditional approach?  As far as I'm concerned you can have whatever you like.

Philip Woodgate

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P.S. Dennis, if you are having a break from AccMan Pro and reading this then give me a break and stop coming up with great ideas.  Even my other non-techie partners now want a Wiki and they want it the same time as the new website and online accounting.  Damn-it Dennis, you are too good for my own good.

Dress the part

I've been away this week at our firms annual conference and although the conference was a great success, I definitely feel in need of some light relief.

Luckily for me Business Week have obliged and put together a presentation on how to dress the part.  Perfect for a light lunchtime read.

Pitching? Beginners apply here.

Need to pitch?  Using PowerPoint?  Want to keep it simple?  Then read these two articles and you should see a significant improvement:

The 10 Worst Presentation Habits in BusinessWeek.

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint by Guy Kawasaki (pointed out to me by Business Two Zero).

All you pro-pitchers out there probably already know about Presentation Zen.  My advice to beginners is to crack the two above before you go there.  It could be hours before you return. 

Philip Woodgate

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