Accountants 'should take lessons from other sectors'

Accountants can learn a lot from other industries, says Rob Pillans, founder and principal consultant at Planet Consulting, and some of the examples are surprising. Speaking on the latest Accountants Daily podcast he said Appliances Online, for instance, had identified two pain points when it comes to buying whitegoods. "Firstly, how long is it going to take to get here? When your fridge breaks down … you don't have a long time before everything goes off. "And secondly, what do you do with the old one? "Appliances Online have, I think, very brilliantly solved that." The lesson for accounting firms – when the work was more complex than an H&R Block return – went to turnaround time on jobs. "Clients would love it if we could do this faster," he said. "So I'm thinking now, who's going to be the accounting firm to really ramp up the turnaround time?"