The prevailing economic conditions have led the leading UK accountancy firms to reduce their investments in technology, however it is the focus of investment, rather its decrease, which is most interesting.

That is why companies are becoming more strategic, including Larking Gowen, who have focused their technology investments on its people over the last 12 months. Partner Ashley Smith says there was an effort to unify communication through Microsoft Teams, in addition to keeping networking infrastructure and team-issued IT kit up to date.

The firm has also made a conscious investment to use its tech spend to improve the experience of its hybrid employees, making sure all its AV equipment in meeting rooms is up to date.

For Larking Gowen, investments have also been made toward efficiency savings. This includes automation and artificial intelligence to assist the firm to “work smarter.”

Furthermore, as practices become more targeted with their investments, it is likely they will become more discerning of their vendors. Thus interoperability between core service providers, SaaS packages with open APIs, and reduced data entry tasks are becoming more important. AI will likely be key in this sense as the technology makes significant steps forward in the coming months and years.

If you would like to read more on this topic, follow the link to the full article from Accountancy Age.