2022 was yet another year filled with the unexpected… big cyberattacks, weather and climate disasters, the FTX fiasco, rising interest rates, the stock market crash, etc. And the audit and advisory industry was no different. We saw more clients seeking modern risk and compliance services to mitigate risks and report on information security, cybersecurity, privacy, ESG, and other emerging risk categories and regulatory requirements. The rapid rise in demand for risk services comes as no surprise, as cybercrime has been growing at 15% a year, and is expected to reach $10.5T in 2025 according to cybersecurityventures.com. Moreover, during the third quarter of 2022, Internet users worldwide saw approximately 15 million data breaches, up by 167% compared to the previous quarter, according to statista.com. Let’s dig a bit deeper into some of the trends we saw in 2022.
In 2022, the importance of adopting modern technology became widely known, as was evident in the presentations and discussions held at the 2022 Allinial Global Summit which Fieldguide sponsored. During this event, Allinial Global's President and CEO, Mark Koziel spoke about important key narratives in the accounting space today, including how CPA firms are concerned about the "talent pipeline" and industry-wide capacity problem -- and why it is so important to think about technology as part of the capacity/resourcing equation. Also, he noted that firms need to think more like corporations, and said "the partnership model is dead”, explaining that partnerships aren't conducive to fast decision-making and execution.
Another highlight of 2022 for Fieldguide was being a proud sponsor at the AICPA & CPA.com Digital CPA Conference in Austin, TX. Fieldguide CEO and Co-Founder, Jin Chang, discussed the current state of Risk Audit and Advisory Services on one of the event’s thought leadership panels. According to Chang, “Out in the market, we are seeing the demand for Risk Advisory Services has outpaced the supply of talent with specialized RAS skills and certifications. We created Fieldguide because we believe that tech-enabling RAS is the most effective and profitable way forward for both firms with an existing RAS practice, and firms looking to develop one. It's been incredibly rewarding to see our practitioners realize significant efficiency gains leveraging our modern software, which is exactly the focus of the DCPA conference - modernizing the accounting profession.”
When leveraging Fieldguide, RAS leaders are able to service up to twice the number of clients with the same headcount. Fieldguide manages the entire engagement lifecycle within a single platform, which has reduced the average number of hours needed per engagement by up to 50%.
While 2022 brought its own set of challenges for the accounting profession, Fieldguide was extremely focused on how we can help to mitigate those challenges, while paving the way in the Risk Advisory Services category. We hit many exciting milestones in 2022, some of which included:
We also saw some incredible company growth thanks to our outstanding team and customers:
While we look ahead to this new year, digital transformation continues to create more opportunities for audit and advisory practitioners to access large amounts of data and insights. According to CPA.com, “leading-edge firms are taking an innovative, strategic and people-first approach to managing their practice, which is creating a competitive advantage that best positions them to attract and retain top talent.” A main focus for Fieldguide in 2023 will be to help firms deliver tech-enabled RAS, which will position them for growth in the digital era. To deliver these services to their clients, firms need intuitive software that enables project management, client collaboration, end-to-end workflow automation, and automated report generation. At Fieldguide, we’ve built these features into the market’s only technology platform purpose-built for risk assurance and advisory practices.
Fieldguide strives to redefine what it means to be the best technology company for this rapidly growing industry. We thank you for co-creating the Fieldguide movement in 2022 and look forward to more shared success in 2023!
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