The art of Accountant 2.0 thinking

Thinking differently; thinking outside the box; thinking from the outside looking in – all this can only turn out for the better in a market that’s becoming more and more competitive. André (co-founder of Twinfield) has often talked in his sessions about ‘lifestyle changes’ that you should begin within 24 hours. But it is difficult, especially if it’s a working method embedded in a business where professional content and knowledge do not need to be marketed. So here’s an illustrative example.  Most people will have noticed the rapid rise of the eReader, promoted at the end of last year by the online shop Bol.com. It’s an appliance in the form of a small flat laptop with a large screen, with which digital books, eBooks, can be read. Seeing is believing in this case, because when you first lay eyes on such an eReader, the chances are you’ll emit a little ‘wow’.

The display of the eReader is based on e-ink technology: it’s just like paper, but electronic. It’s so super sharp it makes you want to scrape off the ‘ink’ on the display. But nevertheless things won’t really work out for the eReader. In the Netherlands there’s a pioneer in this field, iRex Technologies, a spin-off of Philips that’s been busy in this area for years. They were the first to produce such an eReader, and also the first to make it possible for the NRC [a newspaper in Holland - ed] to be delivered daily and automatically via wireless Internet. It’s cutting-edge work, very high-tech with many patents, but the eReader is not likely to be its saviour. With the arrival of the iPad, all eyes have now turned to this, and the eReader – with its greyscale screen – has become an out-of-date appliance from the Stone Age. And what’s the moral in this? Is it an example of innovative technology, but not particularly progressive thinking? I think so. What they have tried to do here is digitise an old and traditional custom in a straightforward way. Everything was focused on the quality of the display that ‘recreated the experience of reading on paper’. And therein lies the mistake.

If you want to win most consumers over, then more is needed. Here they thought traditionally, and tried to become the same as Apple’s iTunes model for music, but for books. This is where the current film studios are also hitting the wrong note. iTunes is relatively new, but nevertheless had already thought traditionally. This worked once for the music industry, but won’t happen again in the same way. Most people’s habits are changing unfeasibly quickly. The eReader is asking them to adopt something, but at a price at which most people these days expect more. It’s often an intangible experience when some people do things differently. Something we can’t possibly all take into account in advance. Successes thus usually come from an unexpected direction. The eReaders have had their chance, and there’s a good chance that the iPad will sound the death knell for this product group. Experiencing an iPad gives reading a whole new dimension. An eReader remains stuffy and boring, and simply imitates the reading experience of a traditional book.

So wherein lies the success of Accountant 2.0? Thinking differently, but how? Not by implementing online accounting and continuing to do old things in an online way at any rate. Luckily nobody knows about this because no one within accountancy land has yet stepped up to the plate. Is there a new Bizner out there, or will a concept like Routemobiel turn the sector on its head? Maybe you’re the unexpected angle nobody in the business has taken into account!