10 Great Trends for CPAs
August 20, 2015 4:07 PM
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Anticipating the future
In anticipation of the recent release of The Anticipatory Organization: Accounting and Finance Edition, an educational program that teaches CPAs how to identify future trends with enough certainty that they can build business opportunities from them, the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute held an event to introduce the concept to a select group of accountants.
As part of the program, the CPAs identified a number of hard trends that they think represent major opportunities for accountants, as well as the responses that will make the most of those opportunities.
You can find out more about "The Anticipatory Organization"
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1. As Baby Boomers retire, the number of qualified peer reviewers will drop significantly.
As a matter of fact, the number of qualified everything will drop significantly, which means that firms that develop niche specialties will be in a strong position to pick up new business.
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2. Changes in Title IV regs have opened opportunities for crowdfunding.
Businesses raising money through crowdfunding will need expert advice on reporting requirements, to say nothing of how to spend the funds wisely.
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3. The entry costs of starting a new business will decline.
As more and more people start up their own companies, there will be a niche for advisors who can serve these kinds of micro-businesses.
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4. The number of clients serving global customers will increase.
And as they range abroad, theyll need help with taxes, contract, overseas accounting issues, and much more.
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5. Hispanics are increasing as a percentage of the U.S. population.
Estimates put the buying power of Hispanics in the trillions of dollars, so developing products and services with them in mind whether in Spanish or not is a good bet for the future.
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6. Transportation congestion will grow as population increases.
Firms that encourage work from home and telecommuting will have a leg up in recruiting, and everyone will want to find ways to replace in-person meetings.
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7. Data security issues will affect more and more companies and people.
Apart from needing to beef up their own IT defenses, firms can build practices in providing cybersecurity consulting and services or in helping those whove fallen victim to breaches or ID theft.
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8. The amount of data that individuals produce will increase dramatically.
There are a host of opportunities here, but one easy one is in providing services in litigation support and forensics, where the ability to sift quickly and efficiently through increasingly large amounts of data will be very valuable.
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9. Remote-work capabilities are improving.
New hardware and software, along with increasing transmission speeds, dont just mean that your employees can work elsewhere they also mean that your clients can work elsewhere, potentially making the entire world you client base.
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10. Increasingly, 3-D printing is being used to create new products.
For firms whose clients including small businesses that offer, offering a 3-D printing service and expertise to customers for parts and prototypes might make sense.
