The times, they are a-changing!
While Bob Dylan wasn’t talking about the app and tech advisory space when he first sang those words over 60 years ago, his words still ring true to this day with all the changes and new tech the accounting industry has seen. After all, tech advisory, which began as a niche, ad-hoc offering, has evolved into increasingly data-driven and profitable new service opportunities for accounting firms across the globe.
In fact, many firms aren’t even charging for tech advisory as many accountants aren’t aware they’re doing it—they just consider the streamlining and automating of accounting tech as part of the job. But the revenue-generating potential of app and tech advisory cannot be ignored, and that’s why everyone, from accounting firms to cloud system implementation providers, is jumping into this burgeoning niche to get a headstart before it reaches its inevitable critical mass—and some would argue that it’s already here.
In this Ultimate Guide to Delivering Tech Advisory Services at Scale, we explore the key challenges, emerging opportunities, and best practices for achieving an efficient tech advisory process at scale.
Introducing AppVentory’s guide to tech advisory in a cloud-first era
This guide will help you better understand the potential of tech advisory as a service and how analyzing customer tech stacks can generate new revenue opportunities for your firm.
You’ll learn about the challenges tech advisors face and how to overcome them, and then we’ll show you what an effective tech advisory process looks like.
Lastly, we’ll explore how to save time and cut costs with auditing tools like AppVentory.
By the end of this guide, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of the tech advisory process with actionable steps to expand your service offerings and provide more value than ever before.
What do tech advisors actually do?
Tech advisory combines software system design, consultation, system implementation, and integration; where solution providers (aka tech advisors) help businesses select and adapt their tech stacks to align the apps and software they use with their operational needs and processes.
Tech advisors achieve this by assessing existing systems and processes, identifying potential issues and areas for improvement, and providing expert guidance for system implementation, optimization and continuous improvement.
Additionally, tech advisors help businesses with integrating tools, while providing ongoing support such as onboarding and training users.
Why tech advisory is so important
In the past, app advisory services used to be viewed as more of a hindrance and way more work than what it was worth. At that time, nobody saw it as a revenue-generating opportunity because there wasn’t much money in it—instead, it was expensive and time-consuming. On top of that, there wasn’t any framework for charging for these types of services, either.
But now, with the rise of cloud software solutions and the ever-increasing interconnectivity of apps and systems, tech advisory services can be scalable and profitable when done right.
According to some estimates, the tech advisory market is expected to grow from $157.91 billion in 2023 to $164.48 billion in 2024—a 4.2% increase year over year! If this trend continues, the market could grow to $196.66 billion by 2028 (assuming an annual growth rate of 4.6%).
With those numbers in mind, it’s easy to see how tech advisory could easily become a multi-million dollar revenue line for large accounting firms.
While it’s easy to focus on compliance (as so many firms do), do not underestimate the potential of tech advisory. Change is always hard but in the near future, efficient and scalable tech advisory services could be the difference between getting or retaining clients because it’s such a huge value add which, in turn, makes them even ‘stickier’.
Why it’s (overdue) time to professionalize tech advisory services
App advisory emerged from the launch of cloud-based accounting solutions like Xero but by this point, it’s been around for over a decade. It forever changed the space and carved out a new niche for supporting services that help businesses improve their systems and processes by adopting new apps and tech solutions.
However, most app advisors, system integrators, and techy accounting firms are stuck in the past when app advisory was still new. Their services haven’t evolved with the times and now, their processes have stagnated and they are struggling to catch up.
App advisory vs. tech advisory: What’s the difference?
Think of app advisory as a legacy, reactive approach where firms simply made recommendations to clients, with ad hoc processes for advising on and implementing new apps. The approach was more informal and firms typically sold their app advisory services to 10 to 50 clients per year.
Tech advisory, on the other hand, has a more holistic scope. It’s more profitable and delivers greater value to clients because it’s more concerned with being proactive and doing things to improve your client’s business with new technologies throughout their lifecycle.
As it professionalizes, tech advisory has become a business unto itself that can easily surpass a million dollars per year once you identify the most profitable, repeatable services for similar businesses across your client base.
Many firms fail to follow up with clients after completing system implementation projects and they miss out on upselling opportunities for further enhancements. Plus, there is likely untapped revenue potential within your existing client base as many companies are prime prospects for tech advisory services—you just have to identify them, first.
While the perceived time-consuming nature of these services is partly to blame, there’s no denying there’s a huge gap in the market for these types of advisory services. But up until now, there weren’t any suitable tools for ‘professionalizing’ and ‘automating’ app advisory services, and some useful tools (such as Xero HQ’s app discovery tool) are simply no longer available.
This has spurred a new age of smart advisory tools, such as AppVentory, which empowers advisors to deliver streamlined tech advisory services at scale.
Tech advisory today (and tomorrow)
Tech advisory can be broken down into 2 main types:
- Straightforward accounting/fintech advisory with minimal complexity: This type is easy to quote for and fits many clients with similar tech stacks, such as Xero, Dext, etc.
- Complicated bespoke solution design and implementation: This is bigger in scale and requires a more ad hoc approach with custom builds and complicated integration and support needs.
There is also a 3rd, rapidly growing category of tech advisory being ushered in by a new generation that is shifting away from the bespoke offerings of the past in favor of new tech stack implementations that can be automated for clients with similar profiles. It’s a modern, repeatable, and scalable model which enables firms to provide more straightforward plans, pricing, and implementation timelines without the added complexity of designing bespoke solutions from the ground up.
The next-gen tech advisory process can be broken down into three key phases:
1. Onboarding
This involves client identification and assessment steps, quotes and agreements, implementation and testing, and user training and sign-off.
2. Ongoing ‘year-in-the-life’
This includes phased app implementations and/or ongoing high-margin tech support plans.
Also, keep in mind that advisors have responsibilities like compliance, reporting and record-keeping (in the initial quarters), before preparing for the year ahead, such as strategic and financial planning, app assessments and proposed refinements, and reviewing changes and confirming fees for the following year.
3. Offboarding
In the final phase where clients have chosen to exit your services, it mainly consists of offboarding tasks like handover documentation, ceasing subscriptions/stopping apps, and updating client records.
Tech advisory in 10-steps
Tech advisory might seem like a complicated process, especially if you’ve never done it before. We’ve broken it down into 10 manageable steps to serve as a guideline that is repeatable and scalable.
1. Client identification
You can identify suitable clients for tech advisory through referrals, marketing campaigns that target your client base, and other routes.
Many firms struggle with this step as they lack the adequate tools and data to discover which clients need tech advisory support.
What’s involved:
- Finding out what prospective clients need
- Filtering clients to identify your ideal customers by business size, type, and tech stack
- Qualifying leads/existing clients to determine suitability
Challenges to consider:
- Attracting suitable clients
- Identifying and prioritizing clients to sell to
- Building credibility and trust in your expertise as a tech advisor
- Convincing clients/prospects that tech advisory is worth it
Recommendations:
Identifying the right clients requires a clearly defined target market, persona profiles, and predetermined criteria for qualification.
While you can do this manually, it’s a lot easier if you use an automated tool like AppVentory. Once those clients have been identified, you must reach out to them and clearly communicate the benefits of your tech advisory services.
Using AppVentory makes it easier to identify potential clients. Essentially, AppVentory is a tech advisory practice management tool with purpose-built capabilities that were designed for highly profitable tech advisory service lines.
Specifically, tAppVentory allows you to set up ‘app stacks’ that segment clients into buckets based on common/relevant app profiles.
For example, you can set up a default app stack, which could include Xero, Dext, GoCardless, etc, and then you could set up a separate e-commerce app stack with additional apps like A2X and Cin7.
AppVentory will analyze your clients, looking for integrations with apps like Xero, QuickBooks, Google and Microsoft workspaces, and then segment the clients according to the app stacks you set up—like the default app stack and e-commerce app stack from the previous paragraph.
AppVentory will then identify the apps and subscriptions your clients have (along with the number of users) and look for any gaps. AppVentory’s intuitive dashboards provide the full picture, showing you which clients are missing certain software solutions.
From there, it’s up to you to approach these new leads and sell them on implementing those apps while opening the door to further advisory services.
2. Initial discovery
The initial discovery phase requires an in-depth look into your client’s current tech stack, including the apps they’re using and any legacy systems they haven’t let go of yet. This preliminary information is vital as it sets the scope for the tech advisory project and the solution.
What’s involved:
- Identifying what’s in your client’s current tech stack
- Highlighting legacy systems, inefficient processes, bottlenecks, and other areas for improvement
- Determining the usage data of the current solutions
Challenges to consider:
- Understanding your clients’ unique needs
- Managing client expectations
- Getting the bigger picture of the existing state of play
Recommendations:
Advisors need to know what the client wants to achieve and their specific operational needs, and this necessitates a comprehensive assessment of their current tech stack.
To get this info, tech advisors conduct workshops and interviews with key stakeholders to gain insights, including SWOT, gap analyses, and other discovery methods.
It’s important to establish clear, written agreements on scope, deliverables, and timelines to effectively manage client expectations and ensure alignment from the start. This will help you achieve successful outcomes and avoid miscommunications and scope creep that could impact profits and lead to client dissatisfaction.
3. Quoting (for systems audit and solution design)
Once you have a clear understanding of the client’s needs, advisors conduct comprehensive audits of current systems and processes. Therefore, the next step is providing a quote for a systems audit and solution design.
What’s involved:
- Creating a thorough quote covering the audit and solution design
- Outlining what to expect and what’s required from the client
- Ensuring the quote fits within the client’s needs, goals, and budget
Challenges to consider:
- Accurately estimating the costs and time involved
- Explaining your discovery feedback in an accessible way that the client can easily understand
- Generating a comprehensive quote that covers all the variables and what-ifs
Recommendations:
Using a standardized quoting template can go a long way in speeding up this process while also making sure you cover your bases including all tasks, resources, and deliverables. It can also help to identify key points of contact as you build the quote from the data and insights you gained in discovery.
Once the quote is completed, do a detailed walkthrough with the client to manage expectations and ensure they understand the scope of the systems audit and solution design. They need to know what’s involved and you need their buy-in to ensure a smooth implementation process.
4. Assessment
Once the quote has been generated and agreed upon, you can begin assessing the tech stack and processes. You want to assess what’s being used, what’s obsolete, and areas for improvement.
What’s involved:
- Collecting key info from users about app/system usage
- Gathering a mix of quantitative and qualitative data to highlight inefficiencies and inform solution recommendations
- Determining which apps to retain/upgrade/replace
Challenges to consider:
- Gathering accurate and current data
- Identifying the root causes of issues and inefficiencies
- Ensuring your assessment tools and techniques are efficient
Recommendations:
To ensure the assessment is accurate, tech advisors should combine advanced data collection tools and thorough verification processes with collaborative conversations with key stakeholders and users. That way, you get a good balance of hard data mixed with user experience.
Tools like AppVentory speed up this process by quickly identifying which apps are used and how many people use them. It also includes survey features to gather data from a bigger audience. Plus, our automation software uncovers and highlights problematic apps and areas for improvement.
Advisors can use information-gathering techniques such as the ‘Five Whys’ model alongside smart audit tools to pinpoint the root causes of issues and prioritize critical areas.
We suggest implementing a structured assessment framework and phased approach with clear steps, timelines, and milestones.
5. Requirements gathering and scoping
Based on your assessment, the next step is building a list of key requirements and documenting issues to solve.
What’s involved:
- Scoping out key requirements and expected outcomes
- Documenting the risks and issues you identified and how to resolve them
- Client communication regarding your assessment findings
Challenges to consider:
- Aligning requirements with project goals
- Managing client expectations and resolving miscommunications and conflicts
- Ensuring the scope is feasible
Recommendations:
Sometimes, you will uncover things that you or the client didn’t expect. If this happens, we suggest discussing the requirements and issues identified with clients and how the new findings may impact the project scope, timeline, and budget.
You can offer use cases as examples and also take a prioritization approach like the MoSCoW method to make sure you and the client are on the same page and agree on the requirements and their priority levels.
It’s important to align on the feasibility of requirements, which can include developing testable criteria and making scope adjustments before moving to solution design.
6. Research & solution design
At the research and solution design stage, tech advisors use everything they’ve learned up to this point (i.e. the insights, assessments and scoping details) to design a new tech stack, crafting the best combination of apps and workflows to achieve the goals of the client.
What’s involved:
- Mapping system and process requirements with the most suitable solutions
- Choosing the best solutions to resolve key issues and boost efficiencies
- Crafting a solution design that’s tailored to your client’s needs
Challenges to consider:
- Ensuring the solutions align with business objectives
- Balancing emerging technologies with practicality
- Preventing budget overrun
Recommendations:
Doing mapping, value stream mapping, and business impact analysis are best practices that help ensure your solution design aligns with your client’s goals and objectives.
Due to the ever-evolving digital landscape, advisors must stay current with the emerging tools and trends to maintain their expertise and give clients confidence in your firm’s tech advisory services.
Although your solution design should future-proof the business for change, the new stack must primarily focus on delivering the results your client expects while solving high-priority issues.
7. Quote (for Implementation Project)
Now, it’s time for another quote for the implementation project. By this stage, you and the client should be well-aligned on objectives, requirements and expectations, which makes it easier to generate a quote that’s clear, accurate and realistic.
What’s involved:
- Outlining the key components of the implementation project
- An accurate calculation of the cost of different apps, solutions, and subscriptions
- An estimation of the overall project costs
Challenges to consider:
- Ensuring your calculations are accurate and cover all required resources
- Effectively communicating the need for each component and its benefits/ROI
Recommendations:
We suggest using estimate of effort (EoE) calculators (either in Excel or specialized software) and leveraging project management tools to define key roles and responsibilities.
In your detailed scoping documents, you’ll have to outline key deliverables, stages, and milestones to not only set client expectations but also prevent scope creep.
Consider the principles of value-based pricing for this quote, as this phase should emphasize the implementation’s value, long-term impact and ROI. A little flexibility never hurts, and many firms offer tiered pricing options for different budgets where required.
8. Procurement
Once you’ve agreed on the quote for implementation, the next step is software procurement, which often takes some negotiating on pricing to keep costs down, which you’ll typically handle on behalf of the client.
What’s involved:
- Vendor selection and evaluation
- Prioritizing cost-effective solutions
- Liaising with vendors, establishing timelines, and managing contracts
Challenges to consider:
- Negotiating to secure the best possible prices
- Coordinating vendors and third parties, adhering to the timelines, and keeping them on track
Recommendations:
A detailed procurement plan, complete with key milestones and deadlines, helps to set expectations with solution vendors and tech partners. You can use project management tools to boost efficiency and we also suggest using a structured vendor assessment framework that allows you to compare expertise, costs, and other criteria to support procurement decisions. This framework works best when it’s incorporated with a vendor risk assessment.
Draft detailed contracts specifying the project deliverables and timelines and use proven vendor negotiation techniques to get the best prices and stay within budget.
9. Implementation, Migration, and Testing
The top priority is ensuring the new tech stack aligns with the client’s requirements and delivers on expectations. Another important aspect is data migration, where data is transferred from legacy systems to new platforms.
Also, during this phase, you should strive to minimize disruptions as any downtime can cost businesses money.
What’s involved:
- Setting up the apps and user accounts
- Developing and testing the integrations
- Managing the migration to and adoption of new solutions
Challenges to consider:
- Preventing system downtime as much as possible to prevent business disruptions
- Maintaining data integrity, system security, and regulatory compliance
- Minimizing risks and oversights
Recommendations:
For a smooth implementation, take a phased approach with fail-safes, rollback plans and other measures to reduce business disruption. It’s important to get client buy-in, so make sure to keep communication open to prevent any unwanted surprises.
A robust testing framework is paramount to ensuring a successful tech advisory project, so make sure to include integration, system, and user acceptance testing (UAT).
Also, implement data validation checks and security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular audits to protect clients from data breaches and other non-compliance risks.
10. Training & Support
After-care is one of the most overlooked parts in tech advisory but it’s essential to client satisfaction and retention. Post-implementation aftercare includes ongoing support, user training, and performance monitoring, which builds trust and empowers clients to get the best out of their new solutions.
What’s involved:
- Training users on operating the new systems, tools, and processes
- Providing dedicated app and software platform training and other resources
- Monitoring and tracking usage and optimizing solutions
Challenges to consider:
- Ensuring you have the resources and processes to provide responsive support and dedicated training
- Implementing effective monitoring tools to track and analyze usage, and identifying issues to improve performance
Recommendations:
Help users hit the ground running by providing effective training sessions. Tech advisors often do a mixture of video walk-throughs/demos and detailed explainer sessions, which are also accompanied by further documentation and e-learning options.
You might need to build dedicated tech support teams, which would require agreeing on SLAs with the client. Make sure to set expectations around the support channels, responding to queries, and how you’ll resolve user issues.
For ongoing monitoring, look for tools and processes that make it easy to track system performance—bonus points if it can gather user feedback as well.
AppVentory not only makes it easy to monitor how well your clients are adopting the new solutions, but it also manages your opportunity pipeline while tracking new enquiries—all in one place.
This is a great opportunity to deepen client relationships, detect areas to improve, and spot opportunities for upgrades that optimize performance while continually adding value for your client.
Transforming tech advisory into a brand-new revenue stream
For clients in need of large-scale digital transformations, a bespoke approach is often best due to its flexible and highly customizable nature.
Nevertheless, firms can still benefit from a structured and repeatable advisory framework (like the 10-step process we just went through). In modern tech advisory, it’s common to categorize clients into segments in order to provide scalable solutions for clients with similar tech stacks.
Tools like AppVentory allow tech advisors to get more with less as it requires fewer resources to analyze, design, quote, and deliver projects efficiently. By including ongoing monitoring, support, and upselling as part of your extended services, you can boost trust, loyalty, and customer lifetime value, while leaving the door open for additional revenue opportunities in the future.
Building a multi-million dollar tech advisory service line in 3 weeks
With the right processes, the scalable potential of modern tech advisory is huge and most accounting firms and software providers have barely scratched the surface.
You start building this money-making operation today with AppVentory. Here are 7 steps to building a multi-million dollar tech advisory service line (in just 1-3 weeks):
- Define different ‘app stack’ plans to sell to customers – these plans can be easily customized to fit your customer types (e.g., app stacks for professional services, contractors, e-commerce, etc).
- Determine a price range for these app stack plans – this will help streamline the quoting process while also giving clients some much-appreciated transparency into your rates.
- Take an inventory of the software your clients are using – AppVentory’s integrations quickly identify the apps and tools within their cloud infrastructure.
- Assign app stack plans to each customer to power usage and performance analysis – this enables you to build campaigns and proposals to sell your tech advisory services to clients that are still stuck using legacy systems.
- Prioritize the clients that present the greatest revenue opportunities with the most pressing software needs – AppVentory gives you the insights to make informed decisions, ensuring time efficiency.
- Build rapport with and sell to your highest priority clients – approach clients backed by the data and insights gained from AppVentory.
- Utilize AppVentory to monitor and report on adoption, usage and performance – this arms you with the data to generate more revenue from clients, including upsells, upgrades and further implementations.
AppVentory: Your solution for app and tech advisory
We built AppVentory because we saw the massive potential of tech advisory and we just made the entire process faster, easier, and more scalable than ever.
From its automation-powered auditing tool to seamlessly integrating with popular software platforms like Xero, Quickbooks, Google Workspace, and Office 365, AppVentory will help you dig deep into clients’ tech stacks and usage in real-time. And it even lets you import data (like bank feeds, etc) from CSV files!
AppVentory’s audit and health check tools will shave hours (and even days) off your tech advisory projects.
You give your clients the power to automate their business, and AppVentory gives you the power to control your tech advisory process from beginning to end.
Learn more about our tech stack auditing tool and apply for early access to AppVentory.
