5 ways to use the cloud for business advantage

1. Make ‘Digital Impact’ work for your Practice!
5 ways to embrace and harness the power of the cloud

2. Thomas Parackal is the executive director of
Stylus Systems, an accounting and
bookkeeping partnering service in Bangalore,
India.
Thomas operates at the forefront of cloud
computing servicing organizations
throughout the world. He helps assemble the
actual teams across boundaries to address the
accounting and bookkeeping workflow needs
of small to medium organizations, giving
them room to breathe and focus what their
customers really need rather than simply
provide transactional services.

3. How to unleash your Digital Game plan!
Wield the cloud like Genghis Khan did the sword! The digitisation of services has no
boundaries.

4. 1. Digitize your workflow

5. Whiteboard your workflow, take out a piece of paper and just map
it out.
You will begin to observe which bits you can out-task, which ones
you can find an app or tool for and even the unnecessary ones that
are just slowing you down.

6. Action:
Whiteboard your workflow. Work out how you and
your employees spend your time, break it down to
steps and chunks, put it out into a map and then pore
over each link in the chain to find out if there are
more efficient ways to achieve a certain business
outcome.

7. 2. Apply Diversified Skills

8. In the new digital environment, you need to think beyond
bookkeeping and accounting skills.
Workflow competency and plumbing various add-ons is a new
skill that you cannot ignore.
Xero Practice Manager or Workflow Max or any other
workflow management tool is under utilized today because
you do not have this skill.

9. Action:
Be bold. The good news is that you can out task even
these skills that you are unfamiliar with. Workflow
max advisors, Workflow digitizers, Business and
Accounting process mappers…they are available to
you at affordable prices and as flexible packages.
Find them, engage them.

10. 3. Out-task

11. Many practice owners are nervous about out-tasking and out-
tasked workflow management
Start small and take things slow.
If you have a lot of accounts, for example, and payable invoices
that need to be posted in your accounting applications, this is
a good place to start.

12. Action:
Take baby steps. If out-tasking or cloud workflow
management unnerves you, start with just one easy
low-level task just to get familiar with how things
work and then eventually move on to the more
sensitive stuff.

13. 4. Get comfortable with virtual meetings

14. You don’t need big offices to build a global empire.
With the many free video conferencing apps, you can get
things done as a team without having to meet face-to-face
often, if ever.
No more unnecessary travel for physical meetings and thus
more time to focus on your business.

15. Action:
Install Skype and reach out to a buddy. Get familiar
with the ins and outs of video conferencing
technology as well as online meeting etiquette and
learn to interact and engage with people virtually
just as well as you would if you met face-to-face.

16. 5. Adopt outcome thinking

17. Why digitise workflow? To save money by improving
efficiency?
Why adopt virtual meetings? To make more money by having
more time to focus on your business?
Think of the end outcome of each of your actions as well as
what impact it will have on your bottom line in terms of
dollars saved or made.

18. Action:
Next time someone suggests or proposes something
to you about your business, ask yourself, “Will this
way of doing things help make more money or save
more money? And how are we going to measure
that?” This is also a great way to evaluate your
current methods and processes. Why do you do what
you do?