AI Magazine Issue 1 2017

Acquisition International - January 2017 47 Falcon Certified Public Accountants - Soaring Above the Competition sustain their business. It is vital that businesses in this industry are constantly innovating otherwise they will shrink due to competitive services, and will become unable to attract, recruit and retain talents, therefore encountering potential threat of competitions from your competitors, decreasing fee level and increasing costs relating to staffing and high office rental. We need to get out of the Jurassic mind set and to be constantly up to date with the latest developments our industry has to offer. For example, WeChat, Whatsapp, QQ, etc., changes the way we communicate, WePay or AliPay changes the way we make payments, and Uber changes the way we use public transport. So, we have to know and understand how to make use of these technologies to add values to our chain of activities to stay profitable. “As such, if we want to stay competitive then we need to make changes to our traditional model, be inventive and not be afraid to try various innovative approaches to deliver our services and to serve our clients more effectively, efficiently and economically. “Therefore, Falcon are always seeking new ways to offer better services to clients, exploring ways we can support them that are not currently offering in the wider accounting and financial market. Currently our firm stands out from the crowd in these competitive times because we have our own offices and talented team members in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, with our own resources, providing a great variety of services, which are not provided by those small and medium sized firms. “Currently, we have about 86 staff members within our group, and through this vast array of talents we are able to provide a wide variety of services in one place, including cross border IPO advisory services, asset protection services, family office services, trust and foundation services, asset management and fund management services. Our firm is not only a registered audit firm, but supported by our licensed trustee firm registered under the Trustee Ordinance in Hong Kong, our associated mutual fund registered with the Cayman Island Monetary Authority, and our associated licensed finance company registered under the Money Lenders Ordinance of Hong Kong. Offering such a vast array of solutions ensures that clients can save time and money by working with just one provider. In my personal opinion, the business growth we have achieved by way of clients’ referral through their recommendation and words of mouth advertising is testimony to the success of our approach.” This vast array of services would not be possible without a committed and professional workforce, and Gilbert is very proud of his talented and dedicated team. “At Falcon, we encourage our staff members to play in a multi-tasking role, as myself and the other senior managers do, as this helps us all to gain the capabilities, expertise, knowledge and skills to deal with different stakeholders, especially our clients, who are the most important stakeholders of all. Staff need to know and understand a variety of practice areas covering marketing, corporate finance, accounting, tax, company laws, economics, etc., because all of these are components of our clients’ businesses. For example, our cross-border team members are called Corporate Finance Engineers because they need to knowmore than just corporate finance in order to be able to do a better job for our clients. As an engineer, one has to possess various environmental knowledges relating to the client’s business inside out. This enables them to provide the level of services that our clients have come to expect from Falcon.” Looking to the future, Gilbert believes that the firm’s core challenges revolve around obtaining skilled and dedicated staff who embody the right attitude and are willing to adapt to the company’s ethos. “Moving forward, the challenges we face are attracting talented people who have passion, drive and positive attitudes. They must also be visionaries and have the desires to become leaders and entrepreneurs themselves. These talented people will make us more successful and act as our engine for growth in the coming future, and we look forward to working with them to develop our service offering to meet the ever-evolving needs of our clients.”