Embrace the Future

Have you ever watched a World Cup game from 2010? How about 1970? Or better still how about an AFL grand final game from the 1960’s? Have you ever wondered why the games have changed so much? What is it about today’s sports that is so different from decades ago? Most of you would say that everything is quicker, there is more skill, the games are more tactical, but have you ever stopped to think why we have had such great improvements in sports from the first day we watched a game until now?

I am a huge believer in using technology to improve every aspect of our lives. Sports clubs now are multi-million dollar businesses and they invest heavily in technology to help improve their performance. We never had sport scientists 25 years ago, nor did we have nutritionists or experts to assess the performance of each and every player. Coaches picked players on gut feelings and what they witnessed, they didn’t use statistics and technology to back their decisions and that is why games were slower and less skillful.

You see, business is exactly the same. For a business to be successful and grow, we must embrace technology, we must implement new ideas and be prepared to fail. When I first started in business, email was just beginning to become the norm, people still preferred the fax and accounting program’s required you to do a lot of data entry. It was essential to do the data entry because you were able to quantify the financial position of a company. Nowadays we have more advanced technology, we have the cloud, smartphones and wireless internet.

We have accounting packages that are cloud based and need a lot less data entry, yet they do a better job than before. It is the one technology that has changed the game for many businesses and accountants. We now have live data and access to it from any computer, tablet or smartphone in the world, we can monitor and keep any eye on our numbers at any time and use this data to grow and improve our business.

At Peterson Group we love cloud accounting, we even offer free training and support on Xero for clients, because we believe that true value is not in data entry but in using the data to help you grow.

So I ask you one question, should we embrace cloud accounting technology and focus more on our business, or should we bring out the fax machines and typewriters and go back in time. Just like watching football games from 1970, I would rather the speed, skill and excitement of the modern game.