‘The Future Belongs To Those Who Prepare For It Today’ ~ Malcolm X, 1962

I recently attended the 4th Annual CCH User Conference and was again very,
very impressed. The 2008 version was just like the first three … except
bigger and better and even more laser-focused on the practice of public accounting
in the world of tomorrow. This year’s conference featured best-selling
author Jason Jennings (“Think Big, Act Small”) and Australian wunderkid
Peter Sheahan, an international expert in workforce trends and generational
change. Both were super-charged speakers and both were enthusiastically received
by the 1,000+ attendees. But the real story isn’t the outside speakers
— anybody can write a check and bring in great talent. Rather, the real
story is the company’s executive leadership and their commitment to “practice
what you preach.”

In his keynote speech, Mike Sabbatis, CCH President and self-proclaimed 50-something
year-old, spoke before Sheahan and was not only comfortable and conversational
in his delivery, but absolutely spot-on in his analysis of the state of the
profession and his intentions for the company’s role in the profession
tomorrow. Sabbatis used audience-pleasing metaphors describing “digital
natives” and “digital immigrants” and their thought processes
involving photography.
“Does ANYONE print every photo they take?” he asked. “Does
ANYONE print and then mail photos?” When the crowd answered, “NO,”
he used the occasion as a “teaching moment” and compared those photos
with an accounting professional’s workpaper. “Does ANYONE print
every workpaper they prepare?” he challenged … much to the delight
of the more technologically advanced in the crowd. Sabbatis’ remarks also
included references to the MMORPG
(look it up!) game World
of Warcraft.

In addition to “getting it” relative to the role of computer connectivity,
digital communications, generational style differences and social networking,
Sabbatis and Robert obviously “get it” regarding what they need
to do at a service and software level. Tomorrow’s firms will demand much
more than today’s, and our vendors better have it tested and ready. We’ll
want complete platform independence, anywhere and anytime access to ALL our
data and ALL our programs. We’ll want complete integration and coordination
of research and compliance. We’ll want to research with tools we already
understand, like Google. We’ll want our vendors to allow us to manipulate
OUR data in Word, Excel and Outlook rather than with some arcane, proprietary
tool. And we’ll want smart workflow and exception reporting. We’ll
need fool-proof methods for administering hundreds and even thousands of client
portals automatically. And we’ll demand that vendors provide fast and
accurate tax document automation. That means scan, organize, populate and develop
appropriate workpapers for us. Finally (well, not exactly “finally”
because there WILL be more — there’s ALWAYS more), we’ll want
our document management to extended toward knowledge management so we capture
the deep domain knowledge currently trapped in the minds of the 75 percent of
our profession about to consider retirement. Each one of these “wants”
was addressed in the future roadmap laid out by Robert and Sabbatis.

I was particularly impressed when Sabbatis, obviously a very busy guy during
his User Conference, agreed to take time out to join me in recording a special
podcast featuring four members of the 40 Under 40 Class of 2008 (www.CPATechAdvisor.com/40under40/2008ebook).
During the podcast, his enthusiasm for mentoring was obvious as well as his
understanding of both the issues and the opportunities of working with Generation
Y. While born squarely in the middle of the Baby Boomer generation and thus
a “digital immigrant,” this guy has a passion to understand the
“digital natives” of Generation Y. He claims mentor-mentee relationships
with “three or four” Gen Y-ers. Listen to this podcast at www.CPATechAdvisor.com/cchuc08.

CCH employs a development design methodology they call “contextual design.”
Contextual design is an iterative process with a particularly strong emphasis
on end-user input. I’ve been hearing them talk about this for several
years, but only recently have I seen the results. Their Product Management team
now consists of both product-level managers and segment-level managers. This
bifurcation of responsibility ensures that the company understands not only
its competition but also the differences in large, medium and small firms. I
interviewed several of these product managers and segment managers and found
them to be passionate in their approach. After hearing Sabbatis’ vision
for the practice of the future, I began to understand not only the product and
segment manager organization but also CCH’s stated strategy of “finding
the best technology available and integrating it into the ProSystem fx
suite.”

The company’s speed to market in some areas has been breathtaking —
ePace became Engagement and was a best-seller in less than three years; BOCDIP
became Scan and almost immediately legitimized an entirely new genre’.
In talking to CCH users (admittedly, only those most committed to ProSystem
fx seem to attend the User Conference), I discovered significant enthusiasm
for this process. Their only complaint seemed to be around a perceived slowness
in the development of a next-generation practice management product. After Robert
showed slide-ware of the future product, one attendee quipped to me, “If
I were a Thomson Reuters user, I’d have had that technology for three
years already!” That said, CCH’s current release of IntelliConnect
and its scan Auto Flow functionality demonstrate to me that Robert and Sabbatis
are, in fact, “walking the talk.” Their commitment to the future
is clear, and they’re preparing their company, their products and customers
for it … today.

PS: Both Robert and Sabbatis ended their respective presentations with their
e-mail addresses and direct telephone numbers. That takes guts, and I applaud
both their resolve and their confidence. Oh, by the way, both are on LinkedIn.
And Sabbatis claims a Facebook account, but to date he has yet to accept my
“friend” invitation. Hmmmmmmm. I wonder???