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Introduction: The Transformation Mismatch
We are living through an era of profound technological acceleration. From AI-powered audit procedures to cloud-based advisory dashboards, the professional services industry is undergoing sweeping change. Mid-sized accountancy firms, including AGN members, are among those leading the charge—making bold investments in digital infrastructure, training, automation, and analytics to enhance client service and firm profitability. But there’s a problem...
Many clients aren’t keeping pace. In fact, the gap between the digital maturity of professional firms and the readiness of their clients is growing wider, and it’s starting to affect relationships, efficiency, advisory services—and in some cases—billable opportunities. We call this the transformation mismatch: a scenario where the firm is ready to move at digital speed, but the client isn’t equipped (or willing) to follow.
This Global Business Voice paper explores how this misalignment manifests, what it means for the delivery of services and advice, and what practical steps AGN members can take to mitigate the risk and capitalise on the opportunity.
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All AGN members are somewhere on the journey to Digital Transformation. The AGN Digital Maturity Diagnostic Tool (accessible to members only) provides AGN members with a diagnostic report and suggestions on key areas of improvement after answering a series of questions. The graphic below presents the four levels.
Practical Actions for AGN Members: What To Do Now
Here are 7 practical and immediately actionable steps AGN members can take to address client
digital immaturity.
1. Diagnose Your Client Base
Not all clients are equal in digital terms. Conduct a light-touch assessment of your top 50 clients and
classify them into tiers:
- Leaders – already using integrated cloud accounting and open to new tech.
- Followers – some adoption but inconsistent practices.
- Laggards – little to no use of digital tools.
Understanding this segmentation helps you prioritise efforts and tailor approaches.
2. Tailor Communications to Digital Maturity
Generic client emails or newsletters may miss the mark. Consider developing communications that speak
directly to the client’s digital level. For example:
- For ‘laggards’ – “Three simple tech steps that will reduce your admin burden.”
- For ‘leaders’ – “Harnessing AI for real-time business decision-making.
Understanding this segmentation helps you prioritise efforts and tailor approaches.
3. Launch Digital Literacy Briefings
Some clients simply don’t understand the ‘why’ of digital transformation. Host informal webinars,
breakfast briefings, or 1:1 sessions to:
- Demystify terms like AI, automation, and APIs.
- Demonstrate tangible value—like faster response times, better cash flow reporting, or automated
reconciliations. - Use simple, real-life client success stories.
This is education without the jargon.
4. Co-Create Digital Roadmaps
Engage your clients in developing their own digital journey. Help them define where they are now, where
they want to be in 12–24 months, and what steps they’ll take to get there. Consider offering these as part
of an onboarding pack, client review, or even as a chargeable advisory product.
Include milestones like:
- Migrate to cloud accounting.
- Implement client portal.
- Introduce simple dashboard reporting.
5. Develop Digital-First Advisory Services
Package services that are not only digitally delivered, but enhanced by digital capability. Examples:
- “CFO Dashboard-as-a-Service” – combining real-time reporting and monthly insights.
- “Cashflow Alerts & Predictive Modelling” – AI-generated forecasts and automated flags.
- “Digital Health Check” – one-time scan of client systems and readiness
These services exemplify your digital ability and offer clients tangible benefit. They can demonstrate to
laggards, what laggards are missing out on.
6. Upskill Relationship Managers to Spot & Sell Digital
Your partners and senior managers are often the closest to clients. Invest in training to help them. What
are the conversation starters? Do your partners/managers have a script around this topic? Are they
equipped with recommended solutions for those that show an interest?
Training might focus on:
- Recognising digital blockers (e.g., manual invoice processing).
- Introduce simple tools (e.g., Dext, Xero projects).
- Share short client stories that highlight transformation success.
7. Incentivise Change with Low-Risk Pilots
Offer time-limited discounts, bundled training, or “first 90 days free” options on new digital services.
This reduces the barrier to entry and lets clients experience the value before committing fully.
It’s about creating momentum and lowering risk—for both sides.
The Digital Acceleration Divide: What’s Going On?
AGN member firms are digitalising at an impressive pace. According to internal benchmarks and diagnostics, over 70% of firms have adopted some level of automation, AI experimentation, cloud systems integration, and dashboard reporting in the last 24 months.
They’re doing this not just to improve margins, but to:
- Increase delivery capacity without headcount.
- Elevate client insight and value.
- Create scalable advisory propositions.
However, client firms—particularly SMEs—are a mixed bag, and so these changes don’t alway get imdiate traction with clients.
Why Clients Are Lagging
Despite the steady advance of digital solutions within accountancy firms, many clients remain hesitant,
slow, or outright resistant to change. This hesitancy can be puzzling to firms that see the benefits so
clearly—but it is rooted in real, often deeply embedded challenges. Let’s explore the most common
causes:
Fear of Cost
Many SME clients see digital transformation as an expensive and potentially risky commitment.
Whether it’s the upfront investment in new software, the training costs for their team, or concerns about licensing and subscription models, clients often perceive digitisation as a luxury they cannot afford. There is also a lack of clarity around the return on investment (ROI). They ask, “Will this actually save me money or just complicate things further?”
Skill Gaps and Confidence Issues
Digital tools require new skills—not just technical knowledge, but also comfort in navigating platforms, interpreting data,
and making decisions based on digital insights. Many small business teams lack in-house tech-savvy staff. For older business owners or traditional sectors (e.g., agriculture, manufacturing), digital
language feels foreign. This lack of confidence results in avoidance.
Change Fatigue
The past five years have been particularly turbulent. COVID-19, supply chain disruptions, hybrid work adaptation, economic volatility, and regulatory shifts have already stretched the adaptive capacity of many SMEs. As a result, digital transformation often drops to the bottom of the priority list—perceived as “another initiative” they simply don’t have the bandwidth for.
No Burning Platform
In many cases, clients simply don’t see the urgency. Their current systems—however inefficient—still function. The absence of a major problem (e.g., a compliance
breach, cyberattack, or missed
opportunity) means there is little
impetus to act. The logic goes: “If it’s not broken, why fix it?”
Fear of Losing Control
Clients often feel they will lose oversight if too much is automated or digitised. Many owner/managers have built their companies on hands-on involvement, and the idea of
systems making decisions or exposing real-time data to others can feel threatening.
Previous Bad Experiences
Some clients have had poor experiences with digital tools in the past—software that was clunky, training that was
insufficient, or consultants that
disappeared once the invoice was paid. These stories linger and shape future resistance
The consequences for AGN firms are significant. As clients hesitate or stall, the firm’s ability to fully leverage its own digital infrastructure becomes compromised. And more than that—relationships begin to strain, as client expectations and firm capabilities move out of sync.
The Three Core Challenges of Client Digital Immaturity
Capability vs Comfort: A Growing Mismatch
AGN firms are increasingly fluent in digital working. From automated data extraction in audit engagements to predictive analytics in advisory, these capabilities are now embedded in many firms’ delivery models. However, when clients remain rooted in paper-based systems or low-tech workflows, the resulting disconnect is stark.
Scenario: For example, a mid-sized accounting firm rolled out an AI-assisted tax reconciliation platform designed to reduce turnaround time by 60%. However, nearly a third of clients declined to use it, citing uncertainty about “AI accuracy” and a preference for their long-time spreadsheet system. The firm is left straddling two workflows—one advanced, one antiquated—undermining efficiency and morale. Firms must then manage the cognitive dissonance of operating at two speeds: high-performance digital with some clients, and analogue friction with others. The costs—both operational and emotional—are real.
2. Digital ROI Stalls Without Client Buy-In
Most AGN members have made significant investments in digitisation—through client portals, automated workflows, intelligent document management systems, and AI-assisted compliance. These investments are intended to increase profitability, scalability, and consistency. But crucially, they rely on client participation to deliver value.
Scenario: If only half your clients upload documents through the portal, the manual chasing begins again. If clients ignore task alerts or continue to send documents via email or post, the system breaks down. Exceptions multiply. Instead of automation freeing time, your staff spend it correcting or working around the exceptions.
This stalls ROI and creates a hidden cost burden—you pay twice: once for the digital infrastructure, and again for the manual work required when clients don’t engage with it.
Worse still, this client behaviour often goes unbilled, because firms feel awkward charging clients for inefficiencies
they themselves created.
3. Advisory Services Need Clean, Timely Data to Work
The growing advisory proposition of AGN members depends on data—good data, recent data, reliable data. Whether it’s offering scenario modelling, ESG reporting, cash flow forecasting, or strategic dashboards, the fuel for these services is accurate and timely input from the client. Without it, even the most sophisticated advisory offer falters.
Scenario: A firm develops a real-time KPI dashboard for a key client. It’s ready to go live. But the client only updates their ledgers once a quarter and refuses to automate bank feeds. The dashboard becomes a digital ornament—impressive, but ultimately unused.
The trust built through advisory work is undermined when insights are incomplete or out of date. And from the firm’s side, the advisory effort becomes unscalable when every project requires a manual workaround just to get basic client data.
Final Word on the Lag
Digital transformation is not just a technical project—it’s a behavioural and cultural shift. AGN firms may have the systems and the know-how, but unless clients can be brought into the ecosystem, that transformation will be incomplete. Addressing the lag is not about forcing clients forward—it’s about understanding the reasons behind their resistance, and finding empathetic, ways to help them take the next step. That’s the opportunity for AGN members: to become not just accounting firms with great tec—but true transformation partners for the clients they serve.
The Advisory Opportunity: Turn the Gap into Growth
While the mismatch presents challenges, it also unlocks one of the biggest growth opportunities for mid-sized firms: become your client’s digital transformation guide. This is advisory with a capital A—and it’s exactly the journey AGN’s Advisory Migration Methodology (AMM) supports. The four regions of the AGN Advisory Migration Methodology (Data & Skills Inputs, Service Framework, Stakeholder Environment, and Outputs & Reporting) can be directly applied to assisting a mutual shift towards digital transformation and post digital advisory. The fact is your firm already understands the levers of the methodology – the opportunity here is to apply them to yours and the client’s business.
Top Tips:
Use what the software can provide to improve Outputs & Reporting. Help a client design board-level easy to access and interpret dashboards.
Offer training sessions to teach Foundational Skills data analysis skills to your client’s finance team.
This not only supports your client—it differentiates your firm in an increasingly commoditised market.
Think carefully about the Stakeholder & Business Environment. Understand how to manage change resistance in the client team.
Conclusion: Mind the Gap—Then Close It
Digital transformation has shifted from optional to existential. Your firm may already be adopting
the tools, platforms, and thinking required to thrive in the new era—but your clients may not
be ready. This readiness gap is now a defining feature of modern professional service delivery.
Firms that fail to bring their clients along risk frustration, underutilised investments, and missed
revenue.
But those who embrace the opportunity to educate, support and lead clients into the digital
age will:
- Unlock deeper relationships.
- Build scalable advisory offerings.
- Future-proof their own value proposition.
Mini podcast
Tune into our mini podcast on Spotify for a quick summary of the key insights.
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