Opportunities in emerging tech: 8 tips

January 31, 2022 11:02 AM

It’s never easy to build a brand-new service line for an accounting firm, but there are unique challenges when it comes to building one around a developing technology.

Whether it’s blockchain, Big Data or artificial intelligence – or any other new tech tool – firms looking to find those opportunities and create new practices to serve those markets need to adopt new mindsights, new strategies and new approaches.

Below are eight insights from pioneering firms, drawn from our new feature on building emerging technology practices.

Be ready to make it up as you go

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It takes a long time for markets, clients, lawmakers and regulators to catch up to a new technology, and that means firms may find themselves blazing new trails.

Atlanta-based Top 100 Firm Aprio found itself in this situation when a client asked them to conduct what may have been the first-ever audit of a blockchain company in 2013.

“The first couple of these engagements were learning engagements for us, and for our clients,” said David Siegel, a partner in the firm’s blockchain practice. “They had never been through audits before, and we had never done a blockchain audit, so we had to develop those skills as we went, and luckily we had some very patient clients.”

Data above — and underlying — all

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Every technology and every company throws off data in vast quantities these days, making it both a fertile area for new services, and a central element of most new technology services.

Tom Mescall, chief growth and innovation officer at Top 100 Firm Armanino, recalled his firm’s executive leadership team agreeing on three immutable truths about the future: “Data’s going to be more important in 10 years, not less important. We said that companies are going to want to have better insights into their data in 10 years, not less insights; and the final immutable truth was that customers and clients and companies and businesses are going to want to able to access that data and make decisions faster in the future than they do today.”

Pick the right industries

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While a technology service may seem appropriate to a broad range of clients or industry sectors, it’s worth taking the time to see if there are specific areas where it may be more valuable.

Every company and industry in the world should be concerned about cybersecurity, for instance, but Top 100 Firm LBMC focuses its efforts on industries where those concerns are backed up by heavy regulation. The health care industry, for instance, has specific obligations around HIPAA rules, which means clients and prospects in that space are already aware of the importance of cybersecurity.

“What I have learned over time is that if I’m sitting in front of a prospect and I’m having to convince them they have cybersecurity issues, they’re not going to be a very good candidate for our services,” said Mark Burnette, the shareholder-in-charge of the LBMC Information Security unit.

Educate your clients

While it may be nice to work with better-informed clients, there’s always the possibility that you may need to educate your potential market.

Armanino’s DataVue initiative, for instance, “is more thought leadership than a service offering,” according to Mescall. “When we look at the market, we understand there’s are a lot of changing aspects to how companies are going to be relevant. CFOs are challenged with how do I be efficient today, but also how do I stay relevant tomorrow with all the disruption that’s coming? The disruption is political, regulatory, industry-focused — but the largest and most significant is technology disruption. How do you embrace technology to make sure that you’re staying on pace with your industry — or leading it? How do you lean into the technology disruption and be a leader, and not be challenged with relevancy in the future?”

Be prepared for different forms of competition

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Lots of players are eyeing the emerging technologies you are — not just other professional services firms. That means you’ll be facing competition from companies that may be able to take risks or make investments an accounting firm can’t.

“In the cybersecurity world, we might be competing with other accounting firms, but we’re also competing with cybersecurity boutiques that aren’t accounting firms,” said LBMC’s Burnette, “as well as technology companies that might sell things like firewalls or servers, and then they bundle services with it, and they give the services away as kind of a freebie to get the deal on the technology.”

Leverage your strengths

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This may seem obvious, but the firms that are most successful in pioneering these kinds of practices either seek out emerging technology industries or markets where their core skills of tax, accounting and auditing are in demand, or develop technology practices in industries or markets that they already understand and with which their staff are familiar.

(See

more on making the most of your staff’s expertise

Find expertise wherever you can

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While many pioneering firms initially staff their emerging tech practices with traditional accountants from other departments who display an interest in the new area, they often find that, as the practice grows, they need to bring in non-accountants with technology expertise.

That isn’t always the case though — at Aprio, for instance, Siegel reported that blockchain “enthusiasts” were often literally too enthusiastic about the field to provide services usefully, and that it was easier to teach accountants about blockchain than to teach blockchain experts about accounting.

The key is to be willing to adjust the staffing model on the new service line as appropriate, and to be open to finding the expertise the practice requires from a range of sources.

Create a culture of innovation

Building any kind of new service line requires a certain amount of entrepreneurialism, but emerging technologies are fast-moving targets, and that means firms need to be particularly nimble and innovative.

“My message to my people is always, if you did it one way yesterday, think about a different way to do it tomorrow,” explained Jerry Ravi, a partner at Top 100 Firm EisnerAmper and national practice leader for EisnerAmper Digital. “I engage with them constantly in doing that. That goes down to the staff level.”

“We’re constantly looking to innovate, transform and improve,” he continued. “Innovation doesn’t happen without a really good culture, and I believe we have an amazing culture to be able to innovate and continuously improve and also bring technology to the table to enable and even transform our current services. Other firms would need to look at that first as they’re exploring different areas.”