AI Magazine Issue 1 2017

20 Acquisition International - January 2017 Jean-Claude and Partners, winner of the 2016 Most Innovative Accountancy Firms for France offers an insight into this accounting firm, of which he is the managing director of. This firm specialises in accompanying foreign firms who wish to set up a legal structure in France he reveals, in an engaging comment piece. ean-Claude and Partners supplies our clients with turnkey solutions. In other words, depending on the goals they have set up, the most adaptable solutions are proposed to them. For instance, should a company need only to collect information and make contact with the French market, we will propose a liaison office. If the company has a much more ambitious challenge, the solution will be to suggest a branch or a subsidiary. Of course, we also provide accounting tax and payroll services for these firms. In terms of business sectors, we are very involved with innovation in IT. We have dramatically increased our turn-over over the last 3 years, thanks to new foreign clients. After achieving 30% growth in 2016, I believe we will record a 10% increase from 2016, and envision such an objective in 2017. In terms of standing out from the crowd in these competitive times and implementing new ideas to deliver business success, it consists in having a clear mission or vision of how you can bring value to clients in the first instance. Certainly, we can this by absorbing the complexity aspect from clients and delivering them simplicity. In addition, we can absorb anxiety from the client and deliver assurance and serenity to them. After this, we utilise primarily on the NTIC means of communication, which provides a much better leverage to be visible than in the off-line world. On this point, no accounting firm displays on the internet site as much information as we do. Moreover, we work on niches unexploited by our competitors (such as how to help foreign firms set up a business in France). Finally, we devote significant time to supervise and train our staff members for their skills to be aligned with our objectives. Concerning recent successes, one is where a Swedish firm wanted to have a legal structure in France and aimed to strike a deal with a well-known department store, and a deal was struck 2 months after the first contact was made. In this scenario, the firm had no idea of the legal structure of how to set up business in France, nor did it know how to open bank accounts or get in touch with a registered office. Hence, our turnkey solution provided these 3 services in a way which allowed the company to start the deal on time! Encountering the competition As we have been grappling with a cutthroat competition for some time, I believe there are a couple of ways to garner the market share. The first is to buy out the competitors as the mainstream accounting firms do. The second is to remain agile and proactive. Clearly, we have chosen the second one. Hence, you need to regularly question the way you do business, or in other words to walk off the beaten track. That is true, not only on the marketing and commercial side, but also on the technical side. For instance, we have enhanced our paperless process for some time now by implementing drag and drop platform for invoices and expenses reports. Regarding the role my staff play in the success this firm, it is definitely key. This is because after a business is set up, compliance with the accounting, tax payroll and labour rules inevitably follow. In order to perform an outstanding service in these respects, the staff must understand the business of the client, the way its representatives behave and how they need to communicate with them. Challenges The first challenge we face is a partial ‘uberisation’ or ‘offshoring’ of the industry. I say partial because regulation is clearly a hindrance to a complete ‘offshoring’ of the industry - the habits of clients’ and staff members’ take time to understand. The second is blockchain, something that will be a tremendous help to organise relations between accounting firms and third parties such as the state. Personally, I am a great believer in it. Company: Jean-Claude and Partners Name: Jean-Claude ARMAND (Managing Director) Email: [email protected] Web: www.jcarmand.com/en/ Address: 2, rue d’Uzès 75002 PARIS, France Phone: +33 1 85 09 96 54 Under Promise – over Delivery J 1701AI03 “our motto will be: under promise, over delivery. Personally, I like nothing more than a happy client when they pay us!”