Technology in Professional Services (TiPS) featured in Innovate UK and ESRC’s January 2025 report on awarded projects. Read the interview with Professor of Operations Management at Lancaster University, Martin Spring, below.
Helping accounting and law firms adopt new technology
Technology in Professional Services (TiPS) is helping SMEs in accounting and law sectors to adopt new technologies using education, training and general support.
As new technological innovations disrupt and evolve workflows, accounting and law sectors must keep up. However, with so many startups and young businesses constantly offering different services, it can be hard for firms to know how and where to start. Companies in the accounting and law sector often lack the appropriate team know-how and may be hesitant to invest for fear of diluting partner earnings in the short term. Technology in Professional Services (TiPS) is working to help organisations effectively adopt new technologies into their strategies, providing educational tools, training, and ongoing support. A three-tiered programme So far, TiPS has delivered support through three tiers of education, each tailored to different levels of company advancement and knowledge. The first offers dedicated training to firms who need help with the tech they’re already using. Consider this the introductory course that allows companies to better understand their processes.
“I sometimes call this the couch to 5k group,” said TiPS’ Principle Investigator and Professor of Operations Management at Lancaster University, Martin Spring.
For firms that are further along in their tech adoption journey, TiPs provides more industry-specific guidance. This could include buying licences for speciality software and applying them to a firm’s workflows, for example. This type of training is shared between organisations.
“Eight firms are collaborating together, with support from peers, academics and industry experts. We have masterclasses, workshops and mentoring to help boost each firm’s potential,” Martin said.
Finally, for the most advanced organisations, TiPs supplies a significant amount of funding to allow hiring of specialist staff and experts. Firms can access consulting on niche technological knowledge or buy licences that fulfil their specific needs. This support is more intensive and long-term.
Dismantling a sector-wide hesitancy to adopt technology
Martin said that TiPS wants to reach the accounting and law sector as a whole, not just the firms it directly collaborates with.
“This idea of shifting our focus to thinking about how we help our sector more broadly and in the long term encourages us to create more accelerators in the future. Ideally, we’d want to put ourselves out of a job and make technology adoption much more straightforward, but that isn’t going to happen in a year or two.
“It’s not just about helping accounting and law firms be more profitable – it’s also about supporting the wider industrial fabric of the economy. There’s a further, more general question about how we accelerate innovation in any sector. Not just this one.”